1 Shore Excursion (18 page)

“Wowzers.
Look at that
,” said a disembodied voice that came from a bench by the edge of the path
.
“
Bet old Abe Klein has been asleep for hours.
She must have
dr
ugged his cocktails.
Tell me, what do you think attracts all these guys to Sylvia?
Is it her big, baby blues or those great
big
knockers?
And why are you hiding in the bushes, spying on them?
I’ve been looking for you everywhere.
You were supposed to meet me at the park entrance at 8:00.”

Of course, I hadn’t seen
Chet Parker
in the gloom.
All I could see even now was the glow of his cigarette.

I looked back toward the fun house,
but Sylvia, that big rat Fernando
, Dr. Sledge, and the Murphys had all disappeared.

I turned to face Chet.
Could he be the writer of the note? But no, he was clearly referring to our
earlier
8 p.m.
meeting time, not midnight at the carousel.

“We were
not
supposed to meet at the public entrance.
We were supposed to meet on the pier, as you well know
, Chet
.
I was there at 8:00 and you were not.
So where were you?”

“Would you believe trapped in the Starlight Lounge with the Levy sisters?
No?
Well then, what about ...”

“Look, Chet,
don’t give me any excuses
.
J
ust
go
back to the ship and call it a night.
The park is closing
soon
.
No, don’t explain. I don’t
care.
And I’ve got to go now. I’m meeting someone near the carousel and I want to get there before the rides stop, if they haven’t already. No, don’t explain, Chet. I don’t care what you have to say,
I really don’t
give a rat’s ass
.
But if you ever mess
with
me again, you are toast, my friend. Hear me?
Toast. Your little glass slippers will never dance again, at least not on Empress Lines.”

This pointless conversation would probably have continued for much longer
if
a long, shrill scream
hadn’t
c
o
me from the direction of the carousel.

Parker and I looked at each other and
,
without another word, took off running toward the sound.

A crowd had gathered around the carousel. Everyone stared in shock and horror at the
sight of the
body
—
a large,
dark-skinned
man,
seated on a carousel horse,
tied by his neck
to the pole
, flopping back and forth, back and forth
,
as the carousel turned round and round, its gaily gilded and painted wooden animals moving up and down with the music. The macabre figure seemed to be swaying in time with the tinkling, music-box melody.

The wire holding the grisly equestrian in place had cut into his neck, and dark red blood
had
bathed the front of his shirt and pants
. It
was
coagulat
ing
in a black-red puddle beneath the hoofs of the horse. His eyes
—
large,
gray
-green, and now sightless
—seemed to
star
e
back at the crowd, the lights of the carousel bizarrely reflected in them.

The onlookers, even the screamer, fell silent, waiting and watching in horrified fascination for the bloody horse and its terrible rider to come around again.

It seemed as if hours passed before the police arrived to shut off the machine and secure the area
. I
n reality it was probably no more than a few minutes.

Chet and I moved in stunned silence away from the grotesque carousel.
The dead man was clearly not one of the High Steppers,
thank God,
not another one
,
though
his clothes
—some kind of uniform—indicated
he
might
have
be
en
a member of the
ship’s
crew.
With all the blood, it was hard to tell.

“Let’s go, Sidney,” Chet said.
“We’d better get the hell out of here.
They are going to cordon off this area.
If we stick around much longer it could be hours before we are allowed to leave, and we might miss our sailing.
Stop staring and let’s go.
That poor
guy
is probably not from the ship.
He must be a local.
I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

But I had
.

He had stumbled over me in the
New York
subway.

I
was
almost positive that it was
the man I had
named
“Homeless Guy.”
What was he doing at Tivoli
? Who killed him, and why?
Was he the author of the note
, the man who said he had been watching me, following me
?
Was he the man I was
asked
to meet at the carousel
?
O
r was that someone else
…
maybe even his killer. H
ad someone silenced him before he
could share his information
or
reveal his identity?

W
e sailed at midnight.
Fast-moving, thick clouds were building in the west.
Lightning snaked from the cloudbank into the sea.
It would storm soon, I thought, certainly before morning.

I stood alone by the rail in the darkness and watched the Rapture clear the docks, then the harbor. Watched until the pilot boat picked up the harbor pilot from our ship. Watched until, with a final wave and a parting blast of his horn, the pilot boat turned back toward Copenhagen and the ship mounted the deep swells of the North Sea.

Then
,
as the waves grew larger, crashing against the bow,
and the lights from shore gradually dimmed,
I watched, bathed in mist,
until at last there was nothing
at all left
but the ship and the blackness of the sea.

I heard
ladies’
heels
approaching from the stern
.
I
n my state of mind, the last thing I wan
ted was
conversation
with a High Stepper
, so I stretched out on a deck chair in the shadows and closed my eyes, hoping that whoever it was would overlook me or think I was asleep.

The
foot
steps came closer and the deck chair next to mine creaked
slightly
with the weight of a new occupant.
I could smell Chanel.

“Hello, Brooke,” I said, without opening my eyes. “Did you have a nice evening?”

“Actually, I did,” she said. “
I went to dinner in Copenhagen with old friends.
They sent a car for me.
But I came back to the ship fairly early and
was
sitting on my balcony
when I
saw you return
in the taxi
with
Chet
.
You looked rather forlorn, so I thought
you might want company
.
I called your room
,
but there was no answer.
Then I thought that I might just find you here and
voil
à
!
Here you are.
What’s wrong, my dear?
Has something happened, or h
as it all
just
gotten to be a bit much for you?”

I looked into the beautiful, wise eyes of my
good
friend
,
and I lost it.

All the troubles of the past two weeks came pouring out.
Jay, Ruth Sha
drach, Al Bostick, Diana, Chet
Parker,
the carousel,
the homeless man, Ortiz
, my biological clock, everything.

She didn’t speak until I had finally run down and
dabbed my eyes with
her monogrammed
linen and lace handkerchief.

“You know, Sidney,
” she said,
“
one of the very few advantages
of
old age, in my view, is that you learn to put a lot of things that once seemed vitally important into perspective.
Younger people, yourself included, seem to believe that it is their mission to solve all the world’s difficulties
;
that the fate of
all
mankind rests on their shoulders
, that everything that happens is their personal responsibility
.
But t
he longer you live
, my dear,
the more you come to realize that you must do what you can, and then leave the rest to
fate, or as you would say, to
the Almighty.
”

She paused
to give my arm at little pat.

“
There is obviously a great deal going on here
,” she went on, “
that neither you nor I understand
. I
t may indeed be dangerous for you and for us all, but we must see it
throu
gh without alarm
ing
the rest of the group
unduly
. Creating panic among
the High Steppers
would serve no purpose, and it would be
terribly
cruel.
It would
spoil everything for them and perhaps put them in even greater danger.
You, of course, have an enormous responsibility
.”

I sniffed
, and she
handed me the handkerchief again
before continuing.
“You must
proceed with extreme caution
—
particularly if you can’t make the tour company see your concern and authorize an early return.
There may be a perfectly normal explanation for everything that has happened, though I doubt it.
This thi
ng with the homeless man is most
disturbing.
”

She was silent for a few minutes, then continued,
“
Yes,
dear Sidney,
you must be very careful.
There is grave danger here.
But I think you were quite right not to involve yourself
in
the police investigation.
After all, you couldn’t identify
that man
.
You never knew his name.
And
it is possible,
after all,
that
you may have been mistaken.
The light was poor, you were
some distance from
the carousel,
and
you had had an upsetting evening
and
several glasses of wine
.
”

“Brooke,” I said, “I’m pretty sure it was the homeless man.”

“Well, i
t seems very odd to me
, dear,
that a homeless man
could follow you all the way
from New York and
somehow meet his end on a merry-go-round in Copenhagen.
I don’t see how that would be possible.
Y
ou must have been mistaken.
Th
at
note may have been from someone else
entirely
, someone
who was afraid to reveal himself in all the
commotion at the carousel. T
he author of the note
may
even
have tired of waiting and left before you
arrived
. You said yourself that you were delayed by the Murphys and Chet Parker.”

She shrugged
.
“
As for your other concerns, well,
Jay will come around
, Sidney;
he is given to fits of pique, you know that, but he is basically a sound man.
A
nd
Mr. Ortiz
... well,
dear girl, there are many fish in the sea.
I wouldn’t lose a lot of sleep over the loss of that one.
Anothe
r will swim along, eventually, you’ll see.”

I thought over what she said, and for a long time neither of us said anything, just watched the sea and the
dark
sky and the distant lights of passing ships in silence.

Finally
I asked,
“Brooke, why do you come on these trips?
You are a wealthy woman.
You can go anywhere, do anything, stay in all the best hotels, go to all the glamour spots.
Why are you a High Stepper?”

“My dear, I love being a High Stepper.
I have done and still do all of those other things.
But I think the High Steppers are a kick.
I like them.
They are good people, genuine people; they are real.
I also enjoy my friends in New York, of course, but I get tired of charity balls and gallery openings and clubs.
So many of my dear friend
s, with their young, young faces
on old, old bodies, are so very sad, so very predictable.
They care little for the stuff of life. Most of them are far more interested in their
appearance
and their health and those tiny dogs that they stuff into their purses. Very dull.
The High Steppers
are
funny and
very loyal, genuine friends
. W
ith
them I see more of the world as it is.
It’s hard to get a true feel for a foreign country, you know, from the penthouse suite of a five star hotel.
”

She looked
clearly
into my eyes and smiled, as though trying to coax the same from me.
“
Now come along dear, and let’s go to our rooms.
It’s late and
we need our beauty sleep!
We don’t want bags
under our eyes
, do we?
”

I left Brooke at the door of her suite and, energized by her sens
ible advic
e, marched down to my cabin for the confrontation with Jay that I had been dreading all night
,
prepared to give
the apology that I
knew I
owed him.

But when I unlocked the door, he wasn’t there
. N
either were his things.

He had moved out.