North of Boston (25 page)

Ekborg goes on with sad, contented resignation. “We're all murderers, and the most dangerous among us are the ones who won't admit it. Hunting is the least destructive of the forms that murder takes. There's no politics involved, no hate. And animal populations replenish themselves quickly for the most part. Think about it. If more people were allowed to kill game, there might be less need for war. But it has to be prey that truly challenges a man's abilities and resourcefulness. Ducks and squirrels don't do the trick.”

Petrenko stubs out his cigarette on his plate. “Jorn is a master hunter. We have a video of him in Africa. If you want to see it, he'll show it to you tonight, I'm sure. He's got his eye on you like he did on that lion. He's a wild man, this Jorn. I'm telling you, watch out for him.”

“I'd love to see it,” I say, finding a plastic smile for Ekborg.

“Then you shall, Miss Kasparov.”

“Tonight I'll be bartending in the small salon after nine.”

“Perfect. That's where we show our videos,” Ekborg says.

The elevator doors open and Zorina storms out, looking like a glass bottle rocket ready to explode. Andrew, I notice, is gone. I feel the reflexive guilt of the employee caught loafing, then fear that she'll be so mad she'll take me off bartending tonight and make me scrub latrines instead. I jump up, start stacking dirty dishes.

“Gentlemen, excuse me, but I need Ms. Kasparov,” Zorina says with cold geniality, coming over to the table.

“Don't punish the young lady, please!” Ekborg crows while Petrenko looks on with amusement. “It's all my fault. I forced her against her will to neglect her duties and drink coffee with us instead. Both Yevgeny and I tried relentlessly to seduce her, with no luck. She's a paragon of virtue, this woman.”

“I'm sure she is, but I must have her now. I'm sorry to take her away.”

“Madame, you do an impeccable job,” Petrenko says. “The service is first-rate.”

Zorina smiles stiffly, refusing to be buttered up.

Petrenko presses forward with the distracting blandishments, designed, I suppose, to get me off the hook. “I'm looking forward to our little adventure. With my friend Jorn on board, we'll be twice as busy as usual in Baffin Bay.”

I freeze, my hand gripping dirty silverware. Baffin Bay. A huge body of water between Canada and Greenland. Remote, untraveled, its distant shores populated only by sparse Inuit settlements. A perfect place to hunt whales.

Zorina grabs my elbow and pulls me aside, drags me over to the bar, where she can harangue me without being overheard. I'm carrying a tray heaped with dishes and almost drop it on her feet.

“Listen, Ms. Kasparov. You need to watch yourself, do you hear? The guests may want to talk and flirt. Fine, if that's what they want, you go along. I won't even stop you if you're inclined to give them more. But never forget that you're an employee who's being paid to forget whatever they tell you or show you, and whatever you see or hear on this voyage. I trust Mr. Hall went over these rules with you.”

“I was told, yes.”

“And please don't be stupid enough to think they would ever care for you. There are no fairy-tale endings here.”

“I didn't think there were.”

“Good. Now finish up here and come see me in the galley.” Zorina sweeps off and, when I return to the table with my empty tray, the men are gone, leaving balled napkins and Petrenko's crushed empty pack of Dukats.

E
ach of the staterooms has a bathroom, there's an extra bathroom on each level, two in the crew's section, and one on the bridge. Altogether, thirteen bathrooms. Maybe a few more Zorina forgot to mention. Enough bathrooms for hundreds of residents of Calcutta or a couple of families from La Jolla. Zorina circled their locations on a deck plan, and handed me a canvas bag filled with cleaning supplies. I was instructed to respect Do Not Disturb signs and to yell
Housekeeping!
before entering a stateroom. Thoughtfully, she folded the deck plan and put it in the bag so I wouldn't get lost. But I can't promise not to get lost. It's such a big boat. So many doors.

On my way to the stairwell I pass the elevator, which I was told crew members are not allowed to use. It wouldn't do for one of the guests to have to share that lovely box of polished wood and mirrors with people like us.
Invisible
is the word Zorina used to describe what we're supposed to be, and my fellow employees seem to have taken this directive to heart. In the half day I've been aboard, the only workers I've met are Zorina, the cook, and Andrew. But I've been told there are twelve of us. With the ten guests—six gentlemen, three bimbos, and Margot, who's in a class by herself—there are twenty-two people aboard. On a boat this size, I suppose it's not surprising that the salons and corridors feel sparsely populated.

It only makes sense to tackle the lavatory on the bridge first. It's likely to be small, just the right amount of challenge for a beginning latrine artist. And, not incidentally, the bridge, the brains of the boat, is where the captain is likely to be.

It's on the third level, a curved room at the bow. Cold, gray, devoid of charm and imagination, just what a good frontal lobe should be. Dozens of gauges and switches are set in panels under a bank of windows. In the center of the room stands a metal wheel with a protruding lever—a contraption that looks like it could have come from a Model T Ford. It's distressing to think that our lives could rely on something so low-tech. The captain is there, consulting a chart. He looks up with a trace of annoyance. I'm wearing the striped T-shirt with the
Galaxy
logo; there's a toilet brush sticking out of the bag I'm carrying. This prompts him to yell across the room, “Oh, no! What kind of trouble are you?”

But he hasn't seen into my soul; it's just a friendly tease. I explain my mission. He points to the lavatory door. “Let me not keep you from your appointed rounds.”

He's short, thick through the middle, decked out in a navy jacket with some yellow stuff embroidered on the shoulders and cuffs. Obviously more of the mandatory boat garb, since he doesn't look like the kind of guy who'd willingly don a wannabe Sergeant Pepper blazer. His face is pasty and bloated, capillaries blooming like purple rhododendron bushes on his cheeks. A lock of sparse sandy hair falls along one side of his face. The way it's combed reveals a bit of delusional studliness on the part of a man who might be pushing sixty.

“How are we set for icebergs?” I say, because I want to start a conversation, and it's the first thing that pops into my head.

“Not to worry. Gotta get farther north before we have to start thinking about those little darlin's.”

“Right-o. How far north?” There's a tiny, unintended yelp of fear in my voice.

His pouchy eyes register amusement. “Don't tell me. You saw
Titanic.
Good movie, huh? What'd you think of Leonardo? Reminds me of myself at that age.” He burbles a bit of laughter. “That's a joke. But listen, sweetheart, don't you worry about icebergs. I've had a lot of experience in these northern seas, and you can rest assured that I'm not a horse's ass like the captain of the
Titanic
was. You're safer here with me than you would be driving on Route 93.”

“Still. What if—”

“Did I tell you not to worry? Were you listening? Gotta do what the captain says, right?” He winks with flirty pleasure in his own authority. “You can call me Lou, by the way. Or Captain Lou, but I don't insist on it.”

“Lou Diggens, right?” The captain who got into a fight with the Japanese fishmaster on the
Sea Wolf
's last voyage.

“Two points for you.”

I tell him my name and set down my bag.

“Oooo-weee. Yes, ma'am. Your reputation precedes you. You got a nickname already, you know that? The Swimmer, we're calling you.” His face darkens. “Shame what happened to Ned Rizzo, huh? Used to work with us.”

“Yeah, I know. He saved my life.” I no longer expect a reaction.

Lou turns back to his chart. “He told you what we're doing out here, huh?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“And you couldn't wait to join the party.”

“Uh-huh. So when do we get to Baffin Bay?”

“Who said we're headed there?”

“Yevgeny Petrenko.”

“That fat Commie wouldn't know Baffin Bay if it bit him in the ass. I'd be careful of him, by the way. He likes the ladies. Zorina's had to beat him off, not that I can see the attraction. Did you meet the redhead yet? Jaeger's mistress? She's actually a very sweet girl.”

“I met her.” It feels good to be offered so much gossip in so short a time. Makes me feel socially accepted. “What's Jaeger like?”

“Hell if I know. He was in here this morning to look over the charts, make sure we're not headed to Australia. Got a face like stone. Richer than God, apparently. But you can't hold that against him, can you? I mean, we'd all like to be him. And he's pretty damn generous with his cash. There's a nice trickle-down, shall we say.”

“If we're not going to Baffin Bay, where are we going?”

Lou picks up a pen and starts writing something on the chart. “Don't ask too many questions. Everybody just does what they're told here. We're all better off that way.”

I glance over his shoulder. “Can't hurt to show me, can it? I hate not knowing where I'm going. It gives me nightmares.”

He surveys me top to toe, as if to be sure he's got me correctly classified. I try to look infantile. “All right, I'll show you. Because we don't want you screaming in the middle of the night, do we?”

The chart is about three feet square, its edges slipped under clear plastic arms to keep it flat. There's a lot of white landmass: the southern reaches of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, with probably a thousand or more miles of coastline flayed into tiny strips like machine-shredded paper. Greenland, also white, is cut off on two sides and stuffed in the upper right corner. Mostly there's a lot of blue.

“It's an easy-as-pie voyage, navigation-wise,” Lou says. “Most of the time we'll be in sight of land. We're about here right now.” His dirty finger lands on a spot in the Gulf of Maine. “We'll head up the east coast of Nova Scotia, hang a left at the Cabot Strait, follow the western shore of Newfoundland through the Strait of Belle Isle. Probably stop for some R&R at Makkovik, then north along the Labrador coast, across the Hudson Strait, bear left here, after the Hall Peninsula, into Cumberland Sound.”

“Cumberland Sound?”

“Right. That's where we're headed. But you can call it Baffin Bay if you want. Or anything else. The guests don't know the difference. You could dump them in Greenland, tell them it's Canada, and it'd take them a day to figure it out.”

“When we get there, do we just, uh . . . float around, or do we stop at a port somewhere?”

“There aren't exactly ports up there. There's a little settlement the locals call Pang snuggled next to a really spectacular fjord. But we're going past that, through some of these islands up here.” He sweeps a finger northwest up the sound. “There's a certain place we drop anchor to have our fun.”

I peer at the map. “Where?”

“What does it matter? It's all remote. The land's uninhabited. No supply ships where we're going, I can tell you. Closest people are the Inuit down at Pang.”

Lou's a glib, sleazy guy, but he's also likable. I'm wondering how to get more information out of him when I hear a scraping sound behind me. A tall, limp young man is pulling up a folding aluminum chair and sitting down. He's got a sallow face and stringy hair, and there's a nervous jump in his legs, now stretched out behind me within tripping distance.

“Meet my stepson, Troy,” Lou says drily, “up from the bowels of the engine room.”

“Hello, Troy,” I say.

“She's the Swimmer,” Lou says with less enthusiasm than he had before.

Troy's eyes glimmer, but he offers no comment.

The conversation turns personal. A bit too personal. Basically, Lou used to be married to Troy's mother. After the divorce, he inherited the care and feeding of her troubled son, got him involved in fishing as a way to keep him off the streets. Not that it worked. All this is told with heavy sarcasm by Lou, who seems to want credit for his nonbiological altruism, while at the same time distancing himself from the obviously pathetic outcome.

When Lou stops talking, Troy nods in the direction of his stepfather and says, “This guy taught me everything I know.”

“Didn't teach you how to break and enter, assault police officers, sell drugs, and keep getting caught, did I?” Lou says angrily.

“No. Just how to suck up and bend over.” Troy looks at me like this is a good joke that he and I could laugh over easily if we wanted to, and I see Lou's neck redden under the collar of his blazer.

I feel like I'm watching Lou and Troy play themselves on reality TV.

“This is the Swimmer's first day. Let's not scare her off,” Lou says tightly.

“She's not scared of sailors out to make a few bucks. Especially when she's one of them.”

Lou glances at me nervously and apologetically, then his eyes scoot away. His stepson seems to have bested him. When his side-swept lock of sandy hair falls over his face, it's like watching the curtain come down on a cheesy one-act. Troy is sitting with his legs spread wide, staring at me like I'm an empty beer bottle on a fence and he's bored white trash.

These are some family dynamics,
I think as I pick up my bag of cleaning supplies and head back the way I came.

“Hey, what about the lavatory?” Lou calls after me.

“Later,” I say.

Troy gives an ugly laugh.

—

I've got to let Parnell know where we're headed right away. My cell phone isn't going to work forever out here in the Gulf of Maine. But we're still close to land, so there's a chance we're in roaming distance for my network.

I tear down three flights of stairs to the bottom level. There's a constant hum on this floor, a vibration in every surface, and a rhythmic thumping that I don't understand. I don't expect to meet anyone, so at first I'm merely surprised to see two men coming out of my cabin. Then I notice that one of them has my laptop under his arm and the other is holding my new Minolta. They head in the opposite direction.

“Hey, wait a minute!” I yell.

They turn. One is bulky as a linebacker, with a placid face. The other is the unfriendly stooped guy who took my bag this morning. They're both wearing navy sweatshirts with the
Galaxy
logo.

“Where are you going with my stuff?”

“You're not allowed to have these devices on board. You'll get them back at the end of the voyage,” the second one says.

“But I've got my life on that machine,” I say, pointing to the laptop.

“You shouldn't have brought any of this stuff with you. No computers, phones, or cameras. Those are the rules.”

“Come on. Give me a break.”

He shrugs, and the two walk away, leaving me standing in the corridor.

I go into my cabin. My duffel bag is open on the bed, and my clothes are strewn about. I check around and discover that they took my iPhone and the Kodak PlaySport as well. They even got the pay-as-you-go phone I packed in case of emergency and stuffed in a wool sock.

I sit on the cot among my scattered things. Without my phone and laptop, I feel naked. Without the cameras, there's no point in my being here at all. Now what do I do?

—

By ten o'clock there's a rowdy little crowd in the small salon. Bob Jaeger, Jorn Ekborg, and Richard Lawler are deep in conversation. Lawler keeps wagging his great blond head excitedly, a loud peal of laughter occasionally breaking forth. Margot half reclines on Jaeger's left, looking wan and listless. Yevgeny Petrenko's got his arm around a woman I haven't seen before. She's older than the others—early forties, round and placid, with poufy bleached hair. He's caressing her bare elbow, rubbing it obsessively, while she blinks lazily like a contented cat.

The salon's cozy by
Galaxy
standards: there's a round card table in a corner and two couches facing each other in the middle of the room. Against the far wall, a projection screen's been pulled down, and there's a laptop open on the table. Subdued lighting makes everyone look good.