Текст книги "The Wheel of Darkness"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“Yes, sir,” Kemper’s Boston accent rasped over the radio. “A Mr. Evered. Gerald Evered.”

“Very well.” LeSeur returned the radio. He paused outside the door, cleared his throat, adjusted his uniform, then raised his hand and rapped once.

The door was quickly opened by a man in his late forties. Automatically, LeSeur took in the details: paunch, thinning hair, expensive suit, cowboy boots. He didn’t look seasick and he didn’t look cranky. He looked scared.

“Mr. Evered?” he asked the man. “I’m the first officer. I understand you wished to speak with someone in command?”

“Come in.” Evered ushered him inside, then closed the door. LeSeur glanced around the cabin. The closet door was open and he saw both suits and dresses hanging within. Towels were strewn across the bathroom floor, which meant housecleaning hadn’t yet cleaned the room. Strange, though—the bed was perfectly made. That meant nobody had gone to sleep the night before. A cowboy hat rested on the pillow.

“My wife is missing,” Evered said, the heavy Texas accent not surprising LeSeur.

“For how long?”

“She didn’t come back to the cabin last night. I want the ship searched.”

LeSeur quickly arranged his face into its most sympathetic expression. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Evered. We’ll do all we can. May I ask a few questions?”

Evered shook his head. “No time for questions. I’ve waited too long as it is. You need to organize a search!”

“Mr. Evered, it’ll help immeasurably if I could just gather a little information first. Please sit down.”

Evered hesitated a moment. Then he took a seat on the edge of the bed, drumming his fingers on his knees.

LeSeur sat down in a nearby armchair and removed a notebook. He had always found it helped if he took notes—it seemed to calm people. “Your wife’s name?”

“Charlene.” “When did you last see her?”

“About ten-thirty last night. Maybe eleven.”

“Where?”

“Here, in our cabin.”

“Did she go out?”

“Yes.” A hesitation.

“Where was she heading?”

“I can’t rightly say.”

“She didn’t mention that she wanted to go shopping, or to the casino, something like that?”

Another hesitation. “Well, see, we had a bit of an argument.”

LeSeur nodded. So that’s how it was.

“Has this ever happened before, Mr. Evered?”

“Has what ever happened before?”

“Your wife leaving after an argument.”

The man laughed bitterly. “Hell yes. Doesn’t it happen to everybody?”

It had never happened to LeSeur, but the first officer chose not to mention this. “Has she stayed away overnight before?”

“No, never. She always comes back eventually, tail between her legs. That’s why I called.” He swiped his brow with a handkerchief. “And now I think you better get going with that search.”

LeSeur knew he had to delicately get the passenger’s thoughts away from a search. Fact was, the Britanniawas too large to be searched completely. And even if they wanted to, they didn’t have the manpower to undertake one: passengers had no idea just how small the security staff really was on an ocean liner.

“Pardon my asking, Mr. Evered,” he said as gently as he could, “but are you and your wife . . . generally on good terms?”

“What the hell’s that got to do with my wife missing?” the man flared up, almost rising off the bed.

“We have to consider all the possibilities, Mr. Evered. She might be sitting in a lounge somewhere, still angry.”

“That’s what I’m talking about—go find her!”

“We’ll do that. We’ll start by paging her on the public address system.” LeSeur already had a pretty good idea of how things stood. The couple had hit middle age, were having trouble in their marriage, and took the crossing to try to put some magic back into life. Maybe the husband been caught boning someone at the office, or she herself had been tempted by a little afternoon delight with a neighbor. So they went on a romantic ocean voyage to patch things up, and instead of finding the magic ended up fighting their way across the Atlantic.

Evered frowned again. “It was just an argument, nothing serious. She’s never stayed out all night. Damn it, you need to get your people together and start a—”

“Mr. Evered,” LeSeur interrupted smoothly, “I wonder if you’d mind my saying something? To reassure you.”

“What?”

“I’ve been working aboard passenger ships for many years now. I see this kind of thing all the time. A couple quarrels, one steps out. It isn’t like your wife just walked out of your house, Mr. Evered. This is the Britannia, the largest passenger ship afloat. There are hundreds, thousands of things on board that could have distracted your wife. Perhaps she’s in one of the casinos—they’re open all night, you know. Maybe she’s in the spa. Or shopping. Perhaps she stopped someplace to rest her feet, then fell asleep—there are two dozen lounges on board. Or perhaps she ran into somebody she knew; a woman, perhaps, or . . .”

LeSeur let his voice trail off decorously, but he knew the meaning was clear.

“Or what? Are you implying that my wife might’ve met another man?” Evered rose from the bed in a sad, middle-aged fury.

LeSeur stood as well and smiled disarmingly. “Mr. Evered, you misunderstood me. I certainly didn’t mean to imply anything of the sort. It’s just that I’ve seen this happen a hundred times before, and it always works out in the end. Always. Your wife is just out enjoying herself. We’ll make a few announcements over the PA system and ask her to contact us or you. I guarantee you she’ll be back. Tell you what: why don’t you order breakfast for two, served en suite? I’ll bet you anything she’ll be here before it arrives. I’ll send up a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, on the house.”

Evered was breathing heavily, making an effort to control himself.

“In the meantime, have you got a picture of your wife I could borrow? We have your ID photos from embarkation, of course, but it always helps to have more than one image. I’ll circulate them among our security staff, so they can keep an eye out.”

Evered turned away, walked into the bathroom. LeSeur heard a zipper opening, the sound of shuffling and rummaging. A minute later Evered emerged again, a photo in his hand.

“There’s nothing to worry about, Mr. Evered. The

Britannia

is probably one of the safest environments in the world.”

The man glared back at him. “You better damn well be right.”

LeSeur forced a smile. “Now, order that breakfast for two. And have a good day.” He let himself out of the stateroom.

In the hall, he paused to examine the photo. To his surprise, he found that Ms. Evered was something of a babe. Not outrageously stunning, of course, but he wouldn’t throw her out of bed: a dozen years younger than her husband, thin and blonde and stacked and wearing a two-piece swimsuit. Now he was more certain what had happened: the missus, pissed off, had met someone and was shacked up with him. He shook his head. These luxury liners were like one big floating orgy. Something happened to people when they got away from land—they started acting like a bunch of sybarites. If Mr. Evered knew what was good for him, he’d go out and do the same: there were plenty of rich widows aboard . . .

LeSeur chuckled quietly at the thought. Then he pocketed the picture. He’d be sure to send it down to security: after all, Kemper and his boys were connoisseurs of hot-looking women, and no doubt they’d appreciate an eyeful of the curvaceous Ms. Evered.

19

THE CHIEF OF SECURITY’S OFFICE WAS IN THE CENTRAL SECURITY complex, a tangle of low-ceilinged rooms on Deck A, at the Britannia’s waterline. Asking directions, Pendergast passed first a manned checkpoint, then a series of holding cells, a locker room and showers, and then a large circular room filled with dozens of closed-circuit televisions cycling through hundreds, maybe thousands, of surveillance cameras sprinkled about the ship. Three bored security officers kept a listless eye on the walls of flat-panel screens. Beyond that stood a closed, faux-wood door marked Kemper. The ship’s legendary brightwork, Pendergast noticed, did not extend belowdecks.

He knocked.

“Enter,” came a voice.

Pendergast stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Patrick Kemper was behind his desk, ear to a telephone. He was a short, burly man with a large, heavy head, thick knotty ears, a brown hairpiece, and a perpetual put-upon expression stamped on his features. His office was remarkably bare: other than a framed picture of the Britanniaand some internal North Star promotional posters, there were hardly any furnishings or decoration. The clock on the wall behind Kemper read twelve noon exactly.

Kemper put down the phone. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you.” Pendergast sat in one of the two unpadded seats facing the desk. “You asked to see me?”

Kemper’s put-upon expression deepened. “Not exactly. Hentoff requested it.”

Pendergast winced at the accent. “So the casino manager has agreed to my little proposal? Excellent. I’ll be most happy to return the favor tonight, when the card counters turn out for their evening’s work.”

“You work out those details with Hentoff.”

“How kind.”

Kemper sighed. “I have a lot on my plate at the moment. So I hope we can keep this brief. What, exactly, do you need?”

“Access to the ship’s central safe.” Abruptly, the security chief’s weary attitude evaporated. “No frigging way.”

“Ah—and here I was under the misapprehension we had an agreement.”

Kemper’s look changed to disbelief. “Passengers are not authorized to enter the vault, much less snoop around in it.”

Pendergast’s reply, when it came, was mild. “It’s not hard to imagine what might happen to a security director who presided over a million-pound loss in the casinos on a mere seven-day crossing. Hentoff may be in charge of the casinos, but when it comes to security, the, ah, chipstops with you.”

Several moments passed in which the two men looked at each other. Then Kemper licked his lips. “Only the first officer, the staff captain, and the commodore have access to the vault,” he said in a low voice.

“Then I suggest you phone the officer of your choice.”

Kemper continued to stare at Pendergast for another minute. At last—without taking his eyes off him—he picked up the phone and dialed. A brief, murmured conversation ensued. When Kemper put down the phone, the expression on his face had not quite cleared. “The first officer will meet us there now.”

It was the work of five minutes to make their way to the vault, located one level below on Deck B, in a heavily reinforced section of the ship that also housed the master guidance control system and the server farms controlling the Britannia’s internal network. Here, below the waterline, the vibration of the diesels was more pronounced. The first officer was already waiting at the security station, looking every inch a ship’s commander with his silver hair and smart uniform.

“This is Mr. Pendergast,” Kemper said, a distinct lack of grace in his voice.

LeSeur nodded. “We met last night. At Roger Mayles’s table.”

Pendergast smiled thinly. “My reputation precedes me, thanks to the good Mr. Mayles. This is the situation, gentlemen: a client has engaged me to find an object that was stolen from him. I know three things about this object: it is a unique Tibetan artifact; it is somewhere on this ship; and its current owner—who, by the way, is also on the ship—murdered a man to obtain it.”

He patted the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “My list of suspects contains three names of passengers who, according to Mr. Mayles, consigned items to the ship’s vault. I would like to give those items a cursory inspection, if you please.”

“Why?” Kemper asked. “Each suite is equipped with its own safe. If what you say is really true, the thief wouldn’t stash the thing there.”

“The object is over four feet long. That makes it too large for in-room safes, other than the ones in the very largest suites.”

LeSeur frowned. “Let’s make this brief. Mr. Pendergast: you can look, but you are not to touch. Mr. Kemper, get one of your men in here, please. I’d like three pairs of eyes to witness this.”

They passed the security station and went down a short corridor, which dead-ended in an unmarked door. The first officer reached into his pocket, pulled out a key on a steel chain, and unlocked the door. Kemper swung it open and they entered.

Although the room beyond was small, the rear wall was completely taken up by a massive circular vault door of polished steel. LeSeur waited while one of the guards from the security station entered the room. Then, extracting another key from his pocket, he inserted it into a lock in the vault door. This was followed by an identity card slipped into a card reader to one side of the safe. Next, LeSeur pressed his palm into a hand geometry scanner beside the card slot. There was a metallic thunkand a red light above the door went on.

LeSeur walked to a large combination dial set into the far side of the vault door. Shielding the dial from the other occupants of the room, he spun it left and right several times. The light above the door turned green; the first officer turned a wheel set in its center, then pulled it toward him, and the massive door swung open.

The interior was illuminated in a watery green light. Beyond the door lay a chamber about twelve feet square. The rear part of the vault was secured by a steel curtain, behind which lay numerous metal boxes, racked in sliding frames, shoulder high. The two facing walls were covered in safe doors, some quite large, their flush front panels gleaming dully in the pale light. Each had a key slot in its center, with a number etched into the steel directly above.

“A safe of safes,” said Pendergast. “Most impressive.”

“Right,” said LeSeur. “Who are we looking for?”

Pendergast pulled the sheet out of his pocket. “The first is Edward Robert Smecker, Lord Cliveburgh.” He paused for a second, reading. “It seems that once his ancestral fortune was exhausted, he resorted to creative ways to make ends meet. Hangs out with the jet set, makes the rounds of Monaco, St. Tropez, Capri, and the Costa Smeralda. Jewelry tends to disappear when he’s around. None of the jewelry he supposedly stole was ever recovered, and he’s beaten every rap. It is assumed he recuts the gems and melts down the metal for bullion.”

The first officer turned to a terminal in the near wall, typed briefly on its keyboard. “That would be number 236.” He walked over to a small safe. “This isn’t big enough for the object you mention.”

“Perhaps the object’s profile can be reduced in size by cutting or folding. If you’d be so good as to open it?”

With an almost imperceptible tightening of the lips, LeSeur inserted a key and turned it. The door swung open to reveal a large aluminum suitcase with a dial lock.

“Interesting,” Pendergast said. He prowled around the open door for a moment, rather catlike himself. Then he reached out and, with utmost delicacy, began turning the dials, one after the other, with a long, spidery finger.

“Just a minute!” Kemper cried. “I told you, touch

nothing

–”

“Ah!” Pendergast raised the lid on the suitcase. Inside were many bricks of aluminum foil and cellophane wrap, each coated with a thick layer of wax.

“Oh, Jesus,” said Kemper. “I hope this isn’t what it looks like.” He slipped a penknife out of his pocket, stabbed it through the layers of wax and foil, and drew it down, revealing a crusty white powder. He reached in, dabbed a fingertip into the powder, took a taste.

“Cocaine,” he said.

“It would appear,” Pendergast murmured, “our good Lord Cliveburgh has started a new and even more lucrative business venture.”

“What do we do?” said LeSeur, staring at the white powder.

“Nothing, for now,” said Kemper, shutting the suitcase and spinning the dial. “Believe me, this isn’t going anywhere. We’ll radio ahead to U.S. Customs. When we come into port, Cliveburgh will collect his trunk and they’ll nail him quayside with the stuff– offthe ship.”

“Very well,” said LeSeur. “But how will we explain that we opened—?”

“We don’t need to,” said Kemper grimly. “Leave the details me.”

“What a stroke of luck,” said Pendergast cheerfully, as the gloom deepened in the room. “It seems rather fortunate I came along!”

No one else seemed to share his view in this matter.

“Next on my list is the movie star, Claude Dallas.”

LeSeur noticed that Kemper had begun to sweat. If this ever got out . . . He turned to the terminal without bringing the thought to completion. “Number 822.”

They approached a larger vault. “Promising,” murmured Pendergast.

LeSeur opened it with his key. Inside were several old steamer trunks, covered with stickers for such destinations as Rio de Janeiro, Phuket, and Goa. The hasps were protected by fist-sized padlocks.

“Hmm,” Pendergast said. He bent before the trunk, massaging his chin curiously.

“Mr. Pendergast,” the security chief said in a warning tone.

Pendergast reached out two lean hands, one of which held a tiny, gleaming tool; he massaged the lock, turning it between his fingers. It sprang open with a click.

“Mr. Dallas should have this lock replaced,” he said. And before Kemper or LeSeur could object, he swung it away, opened the hasp, and raised the lid.

A rubber suit lay on top, along with some braided horsehair whips, chains, manacles, ropes, and various leather and iron devices of an obscure nature.

“How curious,” said Pendergast, reaching in. This time LeSeur said nothing as Pendergast pulled out a Lycra Superman cape and suit, with the crotch cut out. He examined it carefully, plucked something from the shoulder, placed it in a test tube that seemed to appear from nowhere and disappear into nowhere, and then gently laid the garment back down. “I’m not sure it’s necessary to check Mr. Dallas’s other boxes.”

“It is certainly notnecessary,” said LeSeur dryly.

“And last,” Pendergast said, “is Felix Strage, chairman of the Greek and Roman department at the Met. He is returning from a rather unpleasant trip to Italy, where he was questioned by the Italian authorities over some purchases his museum made back in the 1980s of illegally acquired antiquities.”

LeSeur gave Pendergast a long, hard look. Then he turned back to the keyboard. “Number 597,” he said. “Before I open the safe, let’s get one thing straight. Keep your hands off. Mr. Wadle here will do the handling.” He nodded to the guard. “If you open any of the contents, this fact-finding mission of yours will end abruptly and prematurely. Understood?”

“Perfectly,” the agent replied good-naturedly.

LeSeur moved to a safe on the lowest tier of the right wall, one of the largest in the entire vault. He paused, fishing for a different key. Then he knelt, unlocked the steel door, and pulled it open. Inside were three massive, squat wooden crates. The safe was quite deep, and the light was too dim to make the objects out with any success.

Pendergast stared at the crates a moment, motionless. He turned and slipped a screwdriver out of his pocket. “Mr. Wadle?”

The security guard looked with uncertainty at Kemper, who nodded curtly.

Wadle took the screwdriver and unscrewed the side of the crate—eight screws in all—and then removed it. Inside was bubble wrap and foam-in-place. He eased aside the bubble wrap and removed two blocks of foam to reveal the side of a Greek vase.

Pendergast slipped a penlight from his pocket and shined it into the open crate. “Hmm. We seem to have a calyx-crater. Undoubtedly genuine. It seems our Dr. Strage is up to his old tricks, smuggling more antiquities for his museum.” He straightened up, replacing the penlight in his pocket. He stepped back from the wall of safes. “Thank you for your time and patience, gentlemen.”

LeSeur nodded. Kemper said nothing.

“And now, forgive me if I leave in haste.” And with that he bowed, turned, and stepped out of the vault.

In the elevator, ascending to Deck 12, Pendergast paused to remove the list from his pocket. He drew a line through Lord Cliveburgh and another through Dallas. He did not draw a line through Strage.

20

CONSTANCE GREENE WALKED DOWN THE ELEGANT CORRIDOR, Marya Kazulin at her side. She felt an unaccustomed thrill—the thrill of mystery, deceit, and investigation.

“The uniform fits you perfectly,” Kazulin whispered in her thick accent.

“Thank you for bringing it to my suite.” “Is nothing. Uniforms are the only thing we have in plenty. Except for dirty laundry maybe.”

“I’m unfamiliar with this type of shoe.”

“Work shoes. The kind that nurses wear. They have a soft sole, like sneakers.”

“Sneakers?”

“Is that not the word?” Marya frowned. “Now remember, as cabin steward you are not to speak to passengers except when in their cabins on business. Do not make eye contact with anyone we pass. Step to one side and look down.”

“Understood.”

Marya led the way around a corner, then through an unmarked hatchway. Beyond lay a linen room and a bank of two service elevators. Marya walked up to the elevators, pressed the down button. “Who is it you wish to speak to?”

“The people who clean the large suites, the duplexes and triplexes.”

“They are the ones who speak better English. Like me.”

The elevator doors slid open and they entered. “Some of the workers don’t speak English?” Constance asked.

Marya pressed the button for Deck C and the elevator began to descend. “Most of the crew speak no English. The company likes it better that way.”

“Cheaper labor?”

“Yes. Also, if we cannot speak to each other, we cannot form union. Cannot protest work conditions.”

“What’s wrong with the work conditions?”

“You shall see for yourself, Ms. Greene. Now, you must be very careful. If you are caught, I will be fired and put off ship in New York. You must pretend to be foreign, speak broken English. We must find you a language nobody else speaks so you will not be questioned. Do you have any language other than English?”

“Yes. Italian, French, Latin, Greek, German—”

Marya laughed, genuinely this time. “Stop. I think no Germans in crew. You will be German.”

The doors slipped open onto Deck C and they stepped out. The difference between the passenger decks and the service decks was apparent immediately. There was no carpeting on the floor, artwork on the walls, or brightwork trim. It looked more like a hospital corridor, a claustrophobic landscape of metal and linoleum. Fluorescent tubes, hidden behind recessed ceiling panels, threw a harsh light over the scene. The air was stuffy and uncomfortably warm, freighted with numerous scents: cooked fish, fabric softener, machine oil. The deep thrum of the diesel engines was far more pronounced here. Crew members, some in uniform, some in T-shirts or dirty sweats, bustled past, intent on their duties. Marya led the way down the narrow corridor. Numbered, windowless doors of imitation wood grain lined both sides. “This is dormitory deck,” Marya explained in a low voice. “Women in my bunk do some large cabins, you speak with them. We say you are friend I met in laundry. Remember, you are German and your English is not good.”

“I’ll remember.”

“We need reason why you ask questions.”

Constance thought a moment. “What if I say I do the smaller rooms and want to better my position?”

“Okay. But do not be too eager—people here will stab you in back for a job with better tips.”

“Understood.”

Marya turned down another corridor, then stopped before a door. “This my room,” she said. “Ready?”

Constance nodded. Marya took a deep breath, then opened the door.

The room beyond was as small as a prison cell, perhaps fourteen feet by ten. Six narrow lockers were set into the far wall. There were no chairs or tables, no adjoining bath. The walls to the left and right were occupied entirely by spartan bunks, set three high. At the head of each bunk was a small shelf, topped by a light. As Constance looked around, she noticed that each of these shelves was filled with books, photos of loved ones, dried flowers, magazines—a small, sad imprint of the individual who occupied the bunk.

“There are

six

of you in here?” she asked incredulously.

Marya nodded.

“I had no idea conditions were so cramped.”

“This nothing. You should see Deck E, where the NPC staff sleep.”

“NPC?”

“No Passenger Contact. Crew who do laundry, wash engine rooms, prepare food.” Marya shook her head. “Like prison. They no see daylight, no breathe fresh air, for three, four months maybe. Work six days week, ten hours a day. Pay is twenty to forty dollars a day.”

“But that’s less than minimum wage!”

“Minimum wage where? We are nowhere—in middle of sea. No wage law here. Ship registered in Liberia.” She looked around. “My bunkmates in mess already. We find them there.”

She traced a circuitous path through the narrow, sweat-fragrant corridors, Constance close behind. The crew dining area was located amidships, a large, low-ceilinged room. Crew members, all in uniform, sat at long cafeteria-style tables, heads bent over their plates. As they took their places in the buffet line, Constance looked around, shocked at the plainness of the room—so very different from the opulent dining rooms and grand salons the passengers enjoyed.

“It’s so quiet,” she said. “Why aren’t people talking?”

“Everyone tired. Also, everyone upset about Juanita. Maid who went crazy.”

“Crazy? What happened?”

She shook her head. “Is not uncommon, except it usually happen at end of long tour. Juanita go crazy . . . rip out own eyes.”

“Good God. Did you know her?”

“A little.”

“Did she seem to have any problems?”

“We all of us have problems,” Marya said, quite seriously. “Otherwise not take this job.”

They made their lunch choices from an unappetizing variety—fatty slices of boiled corned beef, waterlogged cabbage, mushy rice, gluey shepherd’s pie, anemic-looking squares of yellow sheet cake—and Marya led the way to a nearby table, where two of her bunkmates picked listlessly at their plates. Marya made the introductions: a young, dark-haired Greek woman named Nika, and Lourdes, a middle-aged Filipina.

“I have not seen you before,” Nika said in a thick accent.

“I’m assigned to cabins on Deck 8,” Constance replied, careful to add a German accent of her own.

The woman nodded. “You must be careful. This isn’t your mess. Don’t let hersee you.” She nodded toward a short, hirsute, thickset woman with frizzy bottle-blonde hair, standing in a far corner and surveying the room with a scowl.

The women made small talk in a strange mixture of languages with a lot of English words thrown in, apparently the lingua franca of the Britannia’s service decks. Most of it focused on the maid who had gone crazy and mutilated herself.

“Where is she now?” Constance asked. “Did they medevac her off the ship?”

“Too far from land for a helicopter,” said Nika. “They lock her in infirmary. And now I have to do half her rooms.” She scowled. “Juanita, I knew she was heading for trouble. She is always talking about what she see in the passengers’ rooms, poking her nose where it not belong. A good maid sees nothing, remembers nothing, just does her job and keeps her mouth shut.”

Constance wondered if Nika ever took her own advice on the latter point.

Nika went on. “Yesterday, how she talk at lunch! All about that stateroom with the leather straps on bed and vibrator in drawer. What is she doing looking in drawer? Curiosity killed the cat. And now I have to clean half her rooms. This Jonah ship.”

Her mouth set firmly into an expression of disapproval and she sat back and crossed her arms, point made.

There were murmurs and nods of agreement.

Nika, encouraged, uncrossed her arms and opened her mouth again. “Passenger disappear too on ship. You hear that? Maybe she is a jumper. This Jonah ship, I tell you!”

Constance spoke quickly to stem the flow of words. “Marya tells me you work in the larger cabins,” she said. “You’re lucky—I just have the standard suites.”

“Lucky?” Nika looked at her incredulously. “For me is twice as much work.”

“But the tips are better, right?”

Nika scoffed. “The rich ones give you smallest tips of all. They always complain, want everything just so. That ryparóç in the triplex, he make me come back three times today to remake his bed.”

This was a piece of luck. One of the people on Pendergast’s list—Scott Blackburn, the dot-com billionaire—had taken one of only two triplex suites. “Do you mean Mr. Blackburn?” she asked.

Nika shook her head. “No. Blackburn even worse! Has own maid, she get linens herself. Maid treat me like dirt, like I

her

maid. I have to take that triplex also, thanks to Juanita.”

“He brought his own maid along?” Constance asked. “Why?”

“He bring

everything

along! Own bed, own rugs, own statues, own paintings, own piano even.” Nika shook her head. “Bah! Ugly things, too: ugly and ryparóç.”

“I’m sorry?” Constance feigned ignorance of the word.

“Rich people crazy.” Nika cursed again in Greek.

“How about his friend, Terrence Calderón, next door?”

“Him! He okay. Give me okay tip.”

“You clean his stateroom, as well? Did he bring his own things?”

She nodded. “Some. Lot of antiques. French. Very nice.”

“The richer they are, the worse they are,” said Lourdes. She spoke excellent English with only a faint accent. “Last night, I was in the suite of—”

“Hey!” a voice boomed right behind them. Constance turned to see the supervisor standing behind her, hands on copious hips, glaring.

“On your feet!” the woman said.

“Are you speaking to me?” Constance replied.

“I said, on your

feet

!”

Calmly, Constance rose. “I haven’t seen you before,” the woman said in a surly tone. “What’s your name?”

“Rülke,” Constance said. “Leni Rülke.”

“What’s your station?”

“The Deck 8 cabins.”

A look of bitter triumph came over the woman’s fat features. “I thought as much. You know better than to eat here. Get back down to the Deck D cafeteria where you belong.”

“What’s the difference?” Constance asked in a mild tone. “The food’s no better here.”

Disbelief took the place of triumph on the supervisor’s face. “Why, you impudent bitch—” And she slapped Constance hard across her right cheek.

Constance had never in her life been slapped before. She stiffened for a moment. Then she took an instinctive step forward, hand closing tightly over her fork. Something in her movement made the supervisor’s eyes widen. The woman stepped back.