Dead in the Water (22 page)

Reade saluted him back, said, “Don’t let it happen again.” He pointed at Matt. “That little fellow would like to see someone keelhauled.” Smiled, to show it was just a joke.

“N-no, sir.” A line of sweat trickled down the steward’s temple.

“Well.” Captain Reade stood. His eye narrowed as John came over to Donna, combining the two of them into a couple.

He led the way to the elevators. The nervous steward stayed behind to clean up. In the back of the group, Elise was whispering fiercely and Phil was doing his best to calm her down.

“Do you steer the ship?” Matt asked him.

The captain smiled. “In a way. Would you like to see how?”

“Yes!” Matt looked up at his father with a puppy-dog expression that might have melted even Elise’s heart, had she been paying attention.

“That would be great,” John replied. “Thank you.”

“Oh. Oh.” Matt was about to burst.

“Tomorrow.” The captain’s mouth twitched. “All right?”

“Sure! Cool!”

“That’s quite a boy you have there,” he said to John. “Maybe someday he’ll grow up to be a sea captain.”

“No! An astronaut!”

“You’re behind the times, Captain Reade,” John said.

“Don’t I know it.” The captain traced the gold braid on his cap with his forefinger. “Boys make men feel old, don’t they?”

John sighed theatrically and rolled his eyes. “Absolutely.”

The elevator came, and they all got in. Donna flashed: Hope no fuses blow while we’re in this baby.

The captain looked up at her reflection in the mirrored ceiling. The fluorescent haze turned him gray. “You’re safe,” he said. “With me.”

Phil was the last one out of the elevator, to prove he wasn’t afraid of another blackout. Then he lagged back from the herd to watch his wife, who sashayed her way up to the captain’s side, practically pushing Donna Almond out of the way like in some old black-and-white movie—Move it, sister—and now the captain and Elise chatted like two naughty children plotting a murder.

Phil sighed heavily. The doctor, John, glanced at him. So did the captain, with a smirk.

Fuck him.

When they trooped into the vast dining room, everyone rose and applauded. Phil caught up to Elise as the captain eased away from her and entered stag, probably to look more heroic. Elise tensed when Phil took her hand, and her fingers lay in his grasp like a catch of cold, dead trout.

The room was magnificent, all crystal and gold and silvery pink. It reminded him of an opera house. On a dais gleamed
the white and silver of the captain’s table, complete with an ice sculpture of a mermaid on a rock, arms open, and small bouquets of flowers. All the chairs were empty, though the table was large enough to accommodate twenty easy. Apparently, the captain had invited no one else to his table, just the survivors, minus Ruth and Ramón. None of his own officers, either.

They began to select their seats—there being no place cards—and Donna lowered herself into the one on Phil’s left as the steward held it out for her. She flashed the man a flirtatious smile that he impassively ignored. Phil wasn’t sure she understood what an honor this was. Heavy makeup, plunging neckline, she was definitely blue collar, a “worker,” as Elise would so sweetly put it. John, however, thanked the captain for singling them out. You could tell he was an educated man.

Phil frowned and sat down. Lord, under Elise’s tutelage, he’d become such a snob. When they’d met, she’d laughed at him and called him a cracker. Now he was a rich, cultured Southern gentleman.

At the time, it had seemed like a fair trade: he would give her money, and she would give him class. Elise had been a storybook heroine, beautiful and genteel, and mired in poverty. Over the years, she’d conveniently forgotten the poverty part, but she’d always remembered that when they met, he’d owned silver services that should have been in museums but had no idea which fork to use at dinner.

His fortune came from real estate, and all by accident. He had been a simple insurance salesman in a two-man office, kept score for the bowling league, and rooted for the Atlanta Braves. After his mama died, he took his share of the inheritance and purchased a dilapidated Piggly Wiggly grocery store in Charleston. He’d bought the land on a whim, just because it was located near Van Buren Avenue (no relation), and then the developers had approached him less than six months later, laughing and clapping him on the back and asking, How did he know that was exactly what they were looking for for their mall? Pure dumb luck, with a capital D.
He’d gone on from there, buying more when he felt led to, and selling it for a killing. Gettin’ rich, but still not sure why.

Elise would have known what she was doing. Oh, yes. As she knew now, lounging and posing for the sake of Captain Reade, a devilish temptation with his eye patch and his British accent, like that good old boy in the Brenda Starr comics, Basil somebody. Captain Basil, who poured wine with his ding-dang pinkie sticking up, and every time he uttered a syllable Elise creamed her hundred-dollar silk panties.

Maybe it was his telling her not to smoke that had done it. Oh, she’d sputtered, but that was what she really wanted. By the time they’d gotten into the elevator, she’d zeroed in on him like a cruise missile. Phil understood that it wasn’t so much that she found the man attractive, although it was obvious as mud on a lamb that she did, but that she wanted to rile him, Phil. Get him to macho up, take command. Slap her around and act like Rhett Butler.

He would always disappoint her. He wasn’t the kind of guy ladies read about in romance novels. He was nice, and he was a sort of a wimp, and that, Miz Scarlett, was that.

Passengers constantly interrupted their dinner, shaking hands with them, telling them how happy they were that they’d been saved. A varied mix, old, young, Japanese, Mexican. Bright-eyed, having a marvelous time, excited by the rescue at sea. Surely now it would be news back home, folks calling their folks, and families would worry. Elise had phoned “all the people who mattered,” with requests to contact those who mattered less.

Donna should try her calls again ASAP; he was just about to tell her so when a tragically obese woman waddled over and told them all how grateful they should be to the captain: he’d spent an entire day searching for them, remaining on the bridge for thirty hours straight.

“He’s wonderful,” the lady gushed. “He’s the best captain in the world.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Reinstedt,” the captain murmured modestly, but it was clear he was flattered.

Many others simpered over the captain in the same way, almost as though they’d been coached. The captain’s the best.
The captain’s the most fabulous. The captain, the captain, the captain. Not that the captain seemed to mind. Ol’ boy kept shifting that one eye toward him and the others, as if to make sure they noticed how much the paying guests worshiped him.

With a heavy heart, Phil surveyed the room—the widows, the young couples, the families. Beyond them, an immense dessert buffet from which ice sculptures rose like glaciers. Banks of big, wide windows, and the black night beyond.

Last night in the lifeboat, he’d wept with fear. She had heard him. Everyone had. She probably wouldn’t fuck him for a week.

He took a swallow of the excellent port, which tasted like it was at least fifty years old (Elise had drilled him on vintages; he was quite the expert now, a regular oenophile). Elise was not going to screw the captain of a cruise ship, for mercy’s sake. Even though she had gone to bed with his tax attorney and tried to with Hunter Bennett, his former insurance partner and ex-best friend.

Even though the damn captain was acting like she should.

A band on a dais started up an innocuous, catchy song.

“Oh, I’d love to dance,” Elise trilled. “Phil’s got two left feet.” She laid a hand on the captain’s arm. “Would you do me the honor?”

The captain looked at Phil. There was something cold and mean in that one eye, and Phil felt a chill in the small of his back. The man kept looking at him, and the room tipped to the right just a bit. Straightened out. Phil’s head swam. God, he was exhausted. Wasn’t everybody else ready for bed? They’d just been fished out of the sea, for God’s sake. What were they doing at a goddamn debutante ball?

The captain gazed at him. Phil regrouped and smiled evenly, waved his hand. Go ahead, boy. Take her. I’m man enough to take it.

Elise set down her champagne glass and pushed back her chair. Phil didn’t assist her. Instead, he drained his glass (supposed to sip it, you cracker) and motioned to the steward for a refill.

Elise and the captain melted into the growing crowd of
dancers as others took the floor. The captain glanced once over his shoulder, and Phil shot a glance toward Donna, not quick enough to miss the man’s shit-eating grin.

Well, hell, the
Morris
had made it, so maybe this damn boat would sink instead. That’d solve everything, wouldn’t it?

The steward bent over his glass. Phil grunted. What a terrible thing to think. He drained it before the man left and held it out. Donna started to say something, shut her mouth. Good woman.

Dizzier now, and with good reason, damn it, Phil studied the crush of dancers. So many. You’d think the boat would sink under their weight. The thought made him queasy. Milling around in a slow-motion circle as everyone slid their feet along like ghosts dragging their chains. Step, slide, step, drag.

Drag,

down

down

down—

He shook his head, bleary with alcohol. Stupid, stupid. But then he was pretty stupid, wasn’t he? Stupid with a danged ol’ capital S.

Drag,

down

down

down—

Across the room, a woman swiveled her head and smiled in his direction. She was a brunette with a soft, sweet face, shell-pink lips, and eyes as big and gentle as a Thoroughbred’s. Kind of woman he should have married. When he didn’t look away, her smile grew and she lowered her eyes demurely.

Blood rushed to his face and he put his glass to his lips. She looked up through her lashes, a bit flustered. Oh, darlin’. His face grew hot. What a lady.

Someone walked past the panes of glass, casting the lady in shadow. Light flickered back over her features as the passer-by moved on.

Phil blinked. For a second, for a moment there, she looked like she—

That she was—

Elise and the captain returned. She was cheery and horny; he knew the signs. He decided he’d seen an optical illusion—the woman’s face was there, and in perfect condition—and guzzled his fourth glass of port. Donna’s and John’s gazes ticked from Elise to him—damned gossips—and he feigned nonchalance as Elise sat beside him. He envied little Matt, oblivious and unconcerned, picking apart a cream puff and dipping his fingers into the filling like an islander eating poi.

“Matt,” his father reproved, and the boy guiltily glanced up. Phil winced. Christ, he looked terrible. The bones in his face glowed through his skin. Suddenly Phil didn’t envy him quite as much. In fact, he was damned ashamed.

“Captain Reade has invited us on a tour,” Elise announced to everyone, as if she had personally arranged the treat.

The man bowed as if this was the ultimate sacrifice, but one he would make to please them. “Yes, if you’re amenable.” He cocked his head at Phil, raised his brow questioningly. Goddamn, he’d better not embarrass himself, Phil thought. Ease up on the moonshine. Don’t give that man a single reason to feel superior.

“Yeah!” Matt cried.

John Fielder tapped his mouth with his napkin and laid it beside his plate. “I don’t know. It’s been a long day.”

Matt pouted. “I took a nap. And I don’t even have to anymore.”

The captain laughed, deep and rich and assured. Romance-hero laughter. “Then you should be rewarded. Positive reinforcement and all that, eh, Dr. Fielder?” The lone green eye beamed at the doctor like a jewel in the forehead of an idol.

John acquiesced. “Okay, okay. How can I win when he’s got the navy on his side?”

Captain Reade held up a finger. “Just one ship, Dr. Fielder. Nothing so grand as an entire fleet.”

Elise basked in his cleverness.

Oh, fuck you, Phil thought sourly, standing up with his glass in his hand. Fuck you, both of you, you dang assholes.

As they left, he avoided the captain altogether. And flamed
at the mingled laughter of the man and his wife. Plotting their little murder, plotting their bullshit.

Ballrooms, bars, a disco, a peek inside a glittering casino. John hid a smile as Donna’s eyes widened at the luxury and murmured, “Fu-uck,” in an awed voice. Elise’s spine went
boing
! ramrod-straight at the utterance of the horrid F-word, and then he did chuckle aloud, covering it with a cough.

The ship was large; Reade recited figures about tonnage and length and weight, but the figure that most impressed John was that there were a thousand people, more or less, aboard the
Pandora
. It was a floating town.

“As you see, we refer to the water myths of ancient Greece throughout the
Pandora
,” the captain explained as he led them through the Danaë deck. “Danaë was the mother of Perseus, as you may recall, whose father shut her in a bronze box and threw her in the sea.”