Buzz Cut (16 page)

Morton Sampson smiled, patted him on the back, a comforting touch. Dad ready to forgive his wayward son. Console him in his hour of desperation. "My wife speaks highly of you."

Sugarman nodded his gratitude.

"Yes, Lola has taken an unusual interest in your well-being. In fact, she was the one who brought you to my attention in the first place. The article in the
Miami Herald,
that incident with the fish. Saving the state from an environmental calamity'."

Sugar brushed a patch of hardened salt off the railing. "That wasn't me. It was my friend, Thorn. I was just along for the ride. And it wasn't that big of a deal."

"That's not how the papers had it."

"The papers write about you all the time, Mr. Sampson. How often do they get it right?"

Sampson watched a laughing gull swoop down out of the darkness and land on the radio tower that slanted off the bridge. Radar dish, antennae. The bird began to hop from one vital instrument to another. Sampson glared at the creature until it seemed to feel the heat of his look and threw itself into squawking flight.

Sampson cleared his throat and brought his cheerful smile to Sugarman. "Lola convinced me that if we wanted to solve our problem, and do it discreetly, we should bring in somebody from the private sector. And your name was first on our list. It remains first."

"Well . . ."

"You wouldn't want to disappoint Lola, would you, Mr. Sugarman? She has such a high regard for you."

"I appreciate that. I do. But the fact is, hey, I haven't accomplished diddley."

"You figured out that slot machine scam, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but not in time. The guy got away. I mean, I just can't do this by myself. The ship's too big. Too complex. There's too many passengers, too many crew, too many places to hide on board. There's just no way one person is going to catch your thief, Mr. Sampson. It would be sheer luck if I were to do that. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but there's no way."

Another limo drifted up. The onslaught of dollies continued.

"We stand here, Mr. Sugarman, in one direction a spectacular panorama of the city. And out there the Atlantic is waiting. On every side we are surrounded by extraordinary beauty and luxury. On the deck of a four-hundred-million-dollar state-of-the-art vessel. It would only be natural for you to assume that the owner of all this is a very fortunate, very wealthy man. And you'd be right, of course."

Sugarman smiled, held his tongue. Sampson's eyes were glowing, focused on something in the shadowy distance.

"I'm sure you've heard of the Peter Principle, Mr. Sugarman."

He studied Sampson a moment, searching for a flicker of amusement. Any giveaway this was a joke.

"The Peter Principle," Sugar said.

"The notion of rising to your level of incompetence. Being promoted to a stage beyond your abilities."

"I didn't know it had a name."

"Yes, it does. And the idea isn't just for people. It works for corporations as well. A corporation can also rise to its level of incompetence. It can grow too strong for its own good. As odd as that sounds."

Sugarman nodded.

"Get musclebound," Sugar said. "Like a weight lifter."

Sampson brought his eyes back from the horizon. He settled another smile on Sugar.

"Good," he said. "Yes, musclebound. I like that."

He played with the thought for a moment, then put a hand on Sugar's shoulder.

"Yes," he said. "A man who started off large and strong and because he was large and strong, he could handle more weight than other men could. He could heap things on his back, more and more, shoulder limitless quantities. And in that way he enlarged himself to greater and greater proportions, worked his muscles relentlessly until he could carry more weight than almost any man on the face of the earth."

"Until he got so big he couldn't move anymore."

"That's right," Sampson said. "Exactly. Until he lost his limberness, his flexibility. Paralyzed by his own strength."

"You're telling me Fiesta's in trouble?"

Sampson was staring down the three-mile lane of water that fed to the ocean. He didn't look paralyzed. Didn't look the least bit musclebound or incompetent.

"Do you have any idea," he said, "what it would do to Fiesta Cruise Lines if it became known that a violent act had taken place onboard one of my ships? A murder. Can you guess what would happen to stock values if the general public began to believe that my ships were not safe? Robberies, murders occurring monthly. No, Mr. Sugarman, this is exactly why people come on cruises in the first place, to avoid such dangers. If they wanted risk, if they wanted crime and violence they would simply stay in Miami."

He smiled at his joke. Sugarman liked him. He wouldn't necessarily take a bullet for the guy, but he liked him, liked him a good deal. The man was a positive thinker. He looked you in the eyes, didn't flinch, listened to you until you'd had your say, treated you evenhandedly and then, by God, the man put his Yes up against your No. He could probably make you cheer or salute or do some other serious gushing if he set his mind to it. The guy knew how to inspire, knew how to rally the troops. But he was no game player. All of it was right out in the open. His personal stock of charisma against whatever you could muster.

"Let's say those same newspapers who brought you to my attention, Mr. Sugarman, let's say they got hold of such a story. A murder on the M.S.
Eclipse.
Oh, they would send one of their smart, derisive young reporters over here. He'd tear around, talk to people. No matter what I tried to do, it would come out, our plight, our misfortune. All of us would be smeared. The cruise ship lines, even you, Mr. Sugarman. Think how it would affect your own future business opportunities to be linked to such a high-profile debacle."

Sampson's eyes flicked over to the Filipino moppers; the two of them saw him watching and slammed it into high gear.

"And imagine, if the company were in a ticklish financial position, say for instance its cash flow was sluggish, its creditors growing leery. Can you picture what would happen if there were a drastic drop in traffic, the flow of revenue was suddenly constricted?"

"So what is it? You been building too many ships lately? Spending all your money getting bigger?"

Sampson smiled thoughtfully. "I see why Lola is so high on you."

"Maybe you should go public, sell some shares, get the cash rolling in."

"Oh, I've had offers to buy a significant stake in Fiesta. Good offers, solid offers. Even Bergson waved a few million in front of me."

"Wally Bergson?"

"That's right. Bergson swooped down a few months ago, backed a dump truck full of money up to my house, ready to drown me in cash. He wanted to add Fiesta to his universe."

"Probably the last thing in Miami he doesn't own fifty-one percent of."

"But I wouldn't do it. I still won't do it. And I'm not about to put myself into a position where I
have
to do it."

"So you're content to lose fifty thousand a month? A crew member now and then? Like that's a reasonable cost of doing business."

"If that's what it takes to keep afloat, yes. But, Mr. Sugarman, you are going to save me from all that. You're going to catch this outlaw. And you're going to do it discreetly."

Giving Sugar that passionate smile. That overpowering Yes.

"Okay, look," Sugarman said. "I'll make you a deal."

"Good, good, now we're talking."

"I'll re-up one more tour. But after this cruise is done, no more. I'm giving my notice unless you agree to bring in some serious backup for me. And I mean professional law enforcement people."

Sampson put out his hand and Sugar gripped it. Dry and big and strong. But not squeezing hard. Not one of those. Not needing to impress anyone, mash the small bones. Just a good, firm handshake.

"Fair enough," he said. "We'll talk again at the end of the week. I'll consider your position. In the meantime, eyes like a hawk, Mr. Sugarman. Eyes like a hawk. Let's catch this son of a bitch. Let's string him up."

He let go of his hand and clapped Sugar on the back, gave him a quick shoulder hug, and left him standing there.

***

Sugarman didn't believe in luck. Bad luck maybe. But good luck, no, that was something you made happen. A product of a thousand small things you'd done already, things hard to calculate. Training, habits of mind, good wind, focus, groundwork. He didn't believe the gods were running the show. He'd experimented with that for a few years when he was young, going to church, prayer meetings, the whole nine yards. Got down on his knees, spoke to the spirits he heard flying around in the night air. But nothing happened. Knees got sore. Spirits kept flying.

At the time he thought maybe he didn't know how to pray. Too difficult, too philosophical for him. More the thing for people like Thorn. Thorn was somebody who could get down in the philosophical muck and find an acorn now and then. Not Sugarman.

Now what he believed in was blind chance. The pinball universe. If you worked at it, had some hand-eye coordination, practiced your skills, you got a couple of whacks with the flippers, keeping the balls in play, maybe a hip nudge now and then, but basically, gravity was going to beat you. Flip all you wanted, eventually chance and gravity were going to steal your balls.

Ten minutes after leaving Sampson, on the way back to his cabin, six flights down, blind chance bounced him in the right direction. He heard an argument down a forward passageway when he was headed aft. For no particular reason, he stopped, listened. Two guys going after each other in chop suey English. Nothing he needed to get involved with. But as he was turning away, he sighted a tall thin man cutting across the corridor down a different hallway on Riviera Deck. Just a blink, but he caught the long blond hair, the narrow waist, wide shoulders. Hawaiian shirt, white pants, straw hat.

Sugar dodged behind a bulkhead. Waited a second then took a peek around it down the long hallway. Empty now. He felt the flurry in his chest like a tattered sail beating in the wind. His legs weak. Not sure what he would do this time if he faced off with the guy. If it was who he thought. Same feeling he'd had on the docks that day, the guy jumping across, coming for him. His legs drained. Doe in the headlights. Nothing he'd ever experienced before.

He sucked down a couple of breaths, stepped out, headed down the corridor.

Far as he remembered, there was nothing down there but a fire station, the media room. A few hundred cabins, the cheap ones without portholes, a curtain hanging over a square on the wall so you could imagine you had a window if you needed to. The guy he'd glimpsed wasn't dressed as crew. None of the paying customers were supposed to board until tomorrow morning, no outsiders should be on the ship at all except for Sampson's innermost circle, and all of them were hanging out seven flights up on the Verandah Deck, popping the Dom Perignon in the suites with the panoramas.

Sugar paced slowly down the narrow hall, tried the doors of several cabins. All locked. The cleaning crews had made their final rounds already, scrubbed the brightwork to a glimmer.

Which left the fire station and the media room.

He went to the fire station first, turned the handle, swept open the door, and stepped in quickly. He succeeded only in flushing a moth from its perch, the brown wings careening right into Sugar's face, big as a viper bat. Sugar ducked and swatted at the thing, knocked it to the floor. Round one to Mr. Reflex.

He checked out the room completely, found nothing, shut the door, went forward a dozen feet to the media room. This time he opened the door slowly, stayed in the hallway, and peered into the eight-by-eight space. A swivel chair set before the small control panel where the movies were downloaded from satellites, the Muzak selections made, the many messages from the bridge or the cruise director were relayed to the PA system or to the TVs throughout the ship.

On the far side of the control board, he saw a switch plate swung open. He ducked farther back into the hallway and peeked through the crack in the door. No one hiding there. He stepped inside and moved over to the control panel, bent to look. Only a bundle of wires. Some kind of meter or radio unit attached to them. Nothing he recognized. Then he noticed a small pair of wire clippers sitting on a shelf inside the panel.

Apparently their thief was up to something else this time. A little sabotage maybe. Pipe a porno movie into every TV. Distract the crew with a professional blowjob while he ripped off the casino, walked off with his monthly fifty thou.

When the decking creaked behind him, Sugar stiffened, took a careful breath, gathered himself. Then wheeled around. He made it halfway round before the forearm clenched around his throat, yanked him upright, dragged him several steps backward. The man was strong, flattening Sugar against his chest. His hoarse breath in Sugar's ear.

"Okay," Sugar muttered. "Be cool. Okay? Nobody's done anything wrong here yet. Nobody's in trouble at this moment."

Adrenaline flooding his bloodstream, everything revving.

The man said nothing, maneuvering him into the center of the room. Then Sugarman heard the crackle of electrical current and glimpsed out of the corner of his vision the bluish flash of naked voltage.

"Know where electricity comes from?" The man's dry lips touched Sugar's ear. "The word, I mean, not the thing itself."

He didn't answer, kept himself tense against the man's considerable strength, making minor adjustments, exploring the possibilities of twisting free.

"No? Well, I'll tell you. It's from the Latin
electnim,
which means amber. Amber, the yellow fossil resin. That seems kind of weird, doesn't it? Amber, electricity. Weird until you know the facts. That when you rub amber with your hand or a cloth, you get an electrostatic charge."