Crime of Their Life (13 page)

“You have to be versatile to skipper a cruise ship, don’t you?”

“Everything from a glorified bar operator to a hotel room clerk and house dick combined. Running the ship is the least of my worries.” The smile dimmed. “I don’t think Eldridge is your man. For that matter, I can’t see any of the others involved.”

“Landers didn’t die of old age,” Liddell pointed out. “Somebody helped him over the side.”

The captain tabulated on spatulate fingers. “There’s the Conways. He’s so henpecked, I can’t see him having the nerve. McDowell?” He thought about it for a minute, shook his head. “An old windbag. The honeymooners? Herrick? First trip for both of them. Hilda Phelps?” He shrugged. “She could be a criminal master mind in disguise, but I doubt it. And the Sands couple are too busy wearing a path between the two cabins to have anything else on their minds. That leaves the Keens, and you took real good care of them.”

“Well, we’ve got to hope that Acme comes up with something on one of them. When do we get to Curaçao?”

“La Guaira tomorrow morning, then Caracas Bay, Curaçao the next morning.”

“Then we’ll see what we see.”

“If you’re in any condition to see anything.” The captain stuck his pipe between his teeth, scratched a wooden match on the sole of his shoe, held it over the bowl of his pipe, sucked the flame down into it. “If I were you, I’d stay off poorly lighted promenades and dark decks. Now that they know who you are, they may try for you like they did for Landers.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time somebody’s tried for me. Lots of others who did try didn’t stay around long enough to find out how it came out. Anyway, thanks for worrying about me.”

“Who’s worrying about you?” Captain Rose exhaled a thick cloud of blue-gray smoke, followed it ceilingward with his eyes. “It’s not going to help my reputation to lose two passengers on the same run.” He brought his eyes down to Liddell’s face. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how many times it’s been tried. It only takes the one time that doesn’t miss.”

“For your sake, I’ll try to see to it that nothing happens to me,” Liddell assured him.

“Do that,” the captain warned. “And about that gun of yours. I’ve changed my mind. Maybe you’d better hang onto it. You may be needing it worse than we do.” He ground his teeth on the pipe-stem. “Just try not to shoot up a lot of innocent passengers.”

CHAPTER 13

The afternoon tea dance beside the swimming pool was already in full swing by the time Johnny Liddell walked out onto the sports deck. He stood in the doorway to the aft veranda, squinted into the slanting sunlight.

Overhead the sky was studded with lazy, fat, cottony clouds. The white line of the wake arched gracefully behind them in the turquoise water, and with Grenada out of sight there was nothing to mar the perfect circle of the horizon.

On the postage-stamp-sized dance floor, a dozen or more couples were whirling to the rhythms of the small ensemble. Harry and Belle Doyle were sitting at a table at the side of the pool, they caught his attention, waved him down. He threaded through the tables to where they sat.

“We missed you at breakfast and on the island,” the raw-boned man greeted him. “Thought maybe you were sick. Had a tough time talking Belle out of sending tea and toast to your cabin.”

“I guess my first night at sea tired me out more than I realized. I slept right through.” The music stopped, the couples on the floor started drifting back to their tables.

Jack Allen, the cruise director, crossed the floor to the microphone. “May I have your attention for just one moment, ladies and gentlemen? This will take just a moment.” He waited for them to get seated and for the hum of conversation to die down.

Liddell slid into a chair at the Doyles’s table.

“I’m sure we all had a wonderful time on Grenada this afternoon,” the cruise director blasted into the microphone. “Those of you who went up to the Hotel Santa Maria got one of the best views in the islands from its terrace. Those of you who went to Grand Anse Beach saw one of the prettiest beaches anywhere. Let’s hear it. Everybody have a good time?”

He cupped his ears, listened for the scattered hand clapping and beamed. It reminded Liddell of the captain’s description of a cruise director—an over age cheer leader. Allen raised his hands to cut off the dwindling applause.

“Tomorrow it’s another port, a great one. We dock around seven, but we can’t debark until we’re cleared by the Venezuelan officials. Please don’t forget to carry your cruise membership card with you when you leave the ship.” There was a low hum of conversation. Allen raised his hands for attention. “This is important, ladies and gentlemen. Very important.” He paused, then, “Ladies and gentlemen are urged not to go ashore in shorts. Ladies are urged not to wear slacks at any time and gentlemen will be required to wear coats and ties while going through churches or public buildings or when having lunch.”

There was a rumble of annoyed comment. Allen shrugged, held his hands out, palms up. “We don’t make the rules, ladies and gentlemen. The Venezuelans do. I don’t have to remind you that there’s some anti-American feeling around Caracas—”

“Some anti-American feeling?” McDowell, the oil man from the captain’s table snorted. “Look what they did to Dick Nixon when he came down here!”

“Maybe they’re critics. They saw him on television,” came the retort from a table in the rear. There was a scattering of applause, some laughter. The oil man’s face turned a murky color, he started to rise in his chair, permitted the cruise director to wave him down.

“I just want to remind you these people are very sensitive and they don’t like us. Let’s not have any unpleasant
incidents if we can help it.” He turned, signaled to the ensemble. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. How about some music, professor?”

The ensemble broke into a tortured rendition of the “Tea for Two Cha-Cha.” The Arthur Murray alumni promptly got to their feet, led their partners out onto the floor. In a moment, hips were swinging, heads were snapping from right to left in time to the music.

Jack Allen walked across to where McDowell was sputtering indignantly to his wife, punctuating his remarks by pounding on the edge of his table. The cruise director slid into a chair across from him, smilingly attempted to placate him.

“I don’t blame the Venezuelan people,” Belle Doyle spoke up. “I think it’s disgraceful the way some of these people dress.” She looked around disapprovingly. “I’m sure they wouldn’t think of being seen going around in their home towns dressed like they are when they go on shore.”

Her husband grinned. “They sure wouldn’t if they lived in Three Rivers.” He turned to Liddell. “That’s where we live mister. Three Rivers, Wisconsin. Got forty acres back there. And to tell you the truth I can’t hardly wait to get back to them.”

Liddell brought a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offered them, drew no takers. “The cruise isn’t living up to your expectations?”

The big-boned farmer scratched his head, considered. “Tell the truth, I don’t know what I expected.” He looked up at the clear blue of the sky, the fluffy white clouds. “The day we left Three Rivers, there was slush and snow underfoot, the sky was gray-black and getting ready to dump a couple more inches on us. Nobody can’t fault the weather. And everybody else seems to be having a good time. So I guess it’s me.”

“It is not you, Harry, and you know it,” Belle put in.

“Take a look at them. They’re not enjoying it any more than we are. They’re just working harder at making believe they do.” She turned to Liddell. “I don’t want you to go thinking I don’t like the people or anything like that. It’s just that I make strange with them. I’ve never been more than a couple of hundred miles away from Three Rivers before and this business of going from one island to another, day after day, with all of them looking alike—” She broke off, shrugged. ‘I’d rather stay home.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that, Belle,” Harry put in. “You said yourself the Mill Reef Club in Antigua was the prettiest place you ever saw. And in Barbados—”

“They’re pretty, sure. But every time we go ashore, the people who live there—the whites and the blacks—they stand around staring at us. I got the feeling they’re laughing at us and to tell you the truth I don’t blame them. All these fat women wearing shorts and slacks a couple of sizes too small. The crazy colors they wear. And the halters—” She shook her head. “Some of them are disgraceful.”

“Well, that’s women for you. They—”

“Never mind about the women. How about the men? They wear Bermudas with their fat stomachs hanging out. They carry two or three cameras hung around their necks and they think nobody can tell they’re bald because they wear those silly hats—”

“Better be careful what you say, Belle. Tomorrow morning Mr. Liddell might turn out in orange pants and a green baseball cap like that fellow on the tender this morning.”

Belle eyed Liddell shrewdly, grinned at the picture her husband painted. “He’s not the type. Besides, outside of you he’s the only man I’ve seen on board who might look good in Bermudas.” She colored slightly. “I guess you think I’m pretty outspoken. My daddy always did say my tongue is only hinged on one end.”

Liddell chuckled. “After some of the sophisticated chitchat you hear around, a little candor is welcome.” He leaned back in his chair, watched the hips of the dancers shaking with a Jello-like consistency. “I imagine that seeing some of these tourists for the first time could be a sobering experience.”

“Did you know we lost two people from our table? That Mr. and Mrs. Keen. They got off, bag and baggage in Grenada,” Harry Doyle put in. “Struck me as an odd kind of couple, anyhow. Didn’t seem to mix at all.”

“I didn’t get much of a chance to know them,” Liddell countered.

“Didn’t seem like the cruise type,” Belle put in. “You know, none of the crazy clothes or cameras and stuff.”

“Kept pretty much to themselves,” the lanky man said. “Not stuck-up, more standoffish like.”

“Being a lawyer sometimes does that to people,” Liddell commented.

The woman eyed him shrewdly. “Is that what he was, a lawyer?” She turned to her husband. “Did you know he was a lawyer, Harry?”

Harry Doyle shook his head. “Don’t think I ever heard it mentioned what he did.”

Liddell cursed himself silently for the slip. “It must have been something he said last night at dinner. Before you folks came down to the table,” he explained lamely. He looked around for an excuse to leave, saw no one he knew. “Just like nobody mentioned you were newlyweds, but I sort of got the impression.”

The woman grinned, dropped her eyes, studied her big-knuckled fingers. “I guess you’re the only one on board that hasn’t heard about it, then. They sure teased us about it enough the first few days.”

“And this is your honeymoon?” Liddell pursued the subject, glad to get off the subject of the Keens.

“Courtesy of the Three Rivers
Sun.
That’s our hometown newspaper,” Harry explained. “It was some sort of a circulation contest with this cruise and some luggage and stuff as first prize. We won.”

Belle studied her husband’s face admiringly. “I always knew Harry was smart. All the way back when we were kids together. But I must admit I was sure surprised when they notified us that we won first prize.” She looked around. “Guess we wouldn’t ever be seeing anything like this if we didn’t.”

“Not with a house full of kids we wouldn’t,” Harry told her.

Belle blushed. “You cut that out, Harry.” She appealed to Liddell. “Married less than a month and already he’s got a house full of kids. No sense rushing things, is there, mister?”

“I’m with him,” Liddell told her. He crushed out his cigarette. “You folks going ashore at La Guaira tomorrow?”

The woman looked faintly worried. “Is it true that they hate Americans as much as everyone says?”

Liddell shrugged. “We’re not winning any popularity contests any place down here these days. But I noticed that they have a Cook’s Tour leaving right from the dock. They’ll see to it that you won’t have any trouble.” He got to his feet as the cha-cha was finished and the perspiring exhibitionists were drifting back to their tables. “I think I’d better get inside before they start another number.”

“What’s the matter, Mr. Liddell?” Belle wanted to know. “Don’t you like music?”

He grinned at her. “That’s just the trouble. I do.” He winked at her, turned and headed back through the veranda to the French Quarter Bar.

Robin Lewis was standing at the bar, talking to Lew Herrick, as Johnny Liddell walked in. He walked down to the far end of the bar, slid onto a stool, waited while the bartender shuffled smilingly down to where he sat.

“Afternoon, Mr. Liddell. Enjoy Grenada?”

“I didn’t go ashore, Cyril,” Liddell told him. “I developed my thirst out on the fantail.”

The bartender nodded understanding, reached to the back bar for a scotch bottle. From under the bar he brought up a glass filled to the brim with ice, doused the ice down with the scotch. His hand reached out for the small water pitcher tentatively.

Liddell shook his head. “Don’t drown it.” He reached over, picked up the glass, took a deep swallow, nodded his satisfaction. “Just what the doctor ordered.”

The bartender swabbed at the bar with a rag that left damp circles. He dropped his voice. “Looks like you’re going to have company. Just yell if you want anything.” He deposited the rag into the well, headed for the other end of the bar.

Liddell looked up into the backbar mirror, saw Robin Lewis making her way down to where he sat. Lew Herrick was watching her with a sulky expression. Her eyes met Liddell’s in the backbar mirror, she smiled.

“Are you talking to me today?” She asked as she stopped behind him.

He swung around on the stool, indicated the one alongside him, waited while she clambered onto it. “Why not?” She wrinkled her nose. “Seems to me I did all the talking the last time we were together.” She glanced down at her glass, swirled the liquor around its sides. “I guess I owe you some sort of an apology.”

“For what? For recognizing me? I should be flattered.” She looked up into his face. “I told Delmar—Captain Rose, that is—who you are and what I thought you were doing on board—”