Текст книги "The Wheel of Darkness"

Автор книги: Lincoln Child

Соавторы: Douglas Preston
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Slowly, Constance laid the fork back on the table. She thought of Marya and the pledge of secrecy she owed her. She glanced down. Marya was staring at them, her face white. The other two women were looking studiously at their plates.

Around them, the low murmur of apathetic conversation, which had stopped for the altercation, resumed. She looked back at the supervisor, committing her face to memory. Then—cheek burning—she stepped away from the table and left the cafeteria.

21

FIRST OFFICER GORDON LESEUR FELT A RISING SENSE OF CONCERN as he stepped into Kemper’s monastic office. The missing passenger had not shown up, and the husband had demanded to meet with all the senior officers. Commodore Cutter had been cloistered in his cabin for the last eight hours, in one of his black moods, and LeSeur wasn’t about to disturb him for Evered or anybody else. Instead, he’d assigned the watch to the second officer and rounded up the staff captain, Carol Mason, for the meeting.

Evered was pacing back and forth in the cramped confines, his face red, his voice shaking. He looked like he was teetering on the brink of hysteria. “It’s past four in the afternoon,” he was saying to Kemper. “It’s been eight goddamn hours since I alerted you to my wife’s disappearance. ”

“Mr. Evered,” Kemper, the chief of security, began. “It’s a big ship, there’s a lot of places she could be—”

“That’s what you all said before,” Evered said, his voice rising. “ She’s not back yet.I heard the PA announcements like everyone else, I saw the little picture you posted on the TVs. This isn’t like her, she would never stay away this long without contacting me. I want this ship searched!”

“Let me assure you—”

“To hell with your assurances! She could have fallen somewhere, be hurt, unable to call out or get to a phone. She could have . . .” He stopped, breathing heavily, savagely brushed away a tear with the back of his hand. “You need to contact the Coast Guard, contact the police, get them here.”

“Mr. Evered,” Staff Captain Mason said, quietly taking charge, much to LeSeur’s relief. “We’re in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Even if the police or the Coast Guard had jurisdiction—which they don’t—they could never reach us. Now, you must believe me when I say we have time-tested procedures for dealing with this kind of situation. The chances are almost one hundred percent that, for some reason, she’s unwilling to be found. We have to consider the possibility that she may be in somebody else’s company.”

Evered jabbed a trembling finger at LeSeur. “I told him this morning, my wife’s not like that. And I won’t take that kind of insinuation, not from you or anybody else.”

“I’m not insinuating anything, Mr. Evered,” said Mason, her voice firm and quiet. “I’m simply saying there’s no reason to get upset. Believe me, statistically you’re safer on board this ship than even in your own home. Having said that, we take security seriously, and given the nature of the problem, we willinstitute a search of the ship. Immediately. I’ll supervise it myself.”

The staff captain’s low, competent voice and her soothing words had the intended effect. Evered was still flushed and breathing heavily, but after a moment he swallowed and nodded. “That’s what I’ve been asking from the beginning.”

After Evered had left, the three stood in silence. Finally, the security chief fetched a deep sigh and turned to Mason. “Well, Captain?”

The staff captain was staring thoughtfully at the empty doorway. “Is there any way we could get a psychiatric background report on Mrs. Evered?”

A silence. “You don’t think—?” Kemper asked.

“It’s always a possibility.”

“Legally we’d have to go through her husband,” Kemper said. “That’s a step I’d be most reluctant to take until we’re really sure she’s . . . no longer on the ship. Son of a bitch. We’ve already got a problem with crew morale over that crazy housekeeper—I hope to God we find her.”

Mason nodded. “Me too. Mr. Kemper, please organize a level-two search.” She glanced at LeSeur. “Gordon, I’d like you to work with Mr. Kemper personally.”

“Certainly, sir,” LeSeur said. Inwardly, he cringed. A level-two search meant every public space, all the crews’ quarters, and the entire belowdecks section of the ship—everything, in fact, but the staterooms. Even with the entire security staff mobilized, it would take a full day, at least. And there were some spaces deep in the bowels of the ship that simply couldn’t be searched successfully.

“I’m sorry, Gordon,” she said, reading the look on his face. “But it’s a step we have to take. Standing orders.”

Standing orders,he thought a little morosely. And that’s all it was, really: an exercise in formality. Passenger cabins could only be examined in a level-three search, and Commodore Cutter would have to authorize that personally. No such search had ever been conducted on a ship LeSeur had worked on, not even when there had been a jumper. And that’s what LeSeur privately figured Mrs. Evered was: a jumper. Suicide at sea was more common than the passengers ever realized. Especially on high-profile maiden voyages, where some people wanted to go out in style. That was a huge irony, because it was the way of the cruise industry to sweep them under the rug and do everything to keep the news from the rest of the passengers. Instead of going out in style, Mrs. Evered might simply be five hundred miles behind them and a thousand fathoms deep—

LeSeur’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock. He turned to see a security officer standing in the doorway. “Mr. Kemper, sir?”

“Yes?” Kemper asked.

“Sir,” the man said nervously, “two things.” He shifted, waiting.

“Well?” Kemper snapped. “Can’t you see I’m in a meeting?”

“The maid who went crazy—she, ah, just killed herself.”

“How?”

“Managed to get free of her restraints and . . .” He faltered.

“And what?”

“Pried a sharp piece of wood free from her bedframe and jammed it into her eye socket. Went up into her brain.”

There was a short silence as this bit of information was digested. Kemper shook his head.

“Mr. Kemper,” LeSeur said, “I think you might want to have a word with the passenger in the last suite she cleaned before she went off the deep end. There might have been some kind of unpleasant encounter, an accident, perhaps . . . I was on a cruise ship once where a passenger brutally raped the maid that came in to clean.”

“I’ll do that, sir.”

“Be circumspect.”

“Of course.”

There was a silence. Then Kemper turned back to the nervous security officer. “You mentioned a second thing?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well? What is it?” Kemper asked brusquely.

“There’s something you should see.” “What?”

The man hesitated. “I’d rather you saw it directly, sir. It might pertain to the missing passenger.”

“Where is it?” Mason interrupted, her voice sharp.

“The weather deck aft of the St. James’s shopping arcade.”

“Lead the way,” said Mason crisply. “We’ll all go together.”

Kemper headed toward the door, then glanced back at LeSeur. “You coming, sir?”

“Yes.” LeSeur said reluctantly, with a sinking feeling.

The deck was raw and damp. There were no passengers—the few hardy souls who ventured out into the open air usually sought out the unbroken circuit of the promenade on Deck 7, directly above. There was a buffeting wind that tore froth from the ship’s bow far into the air, and within moments LeSeur’s jacket was soaked.

The security officer led the way to the railing. “It’s down there,” he said, pointing over the side.

LeSeur joined Kemper and Carol Mason at the rail. He glanced over, staring down at the water seven decks below. It boiled angrily along the smooth flank of the ship.

“What are we looking at?” Kemper asked.

“There, sir. I just noticed it as I did a visual inspection of the hull. Do you see the damage to the brightwork below the toe-rail there, just to the left of that scupper?”

Keeping a tight grip on the railing, LeSeur leaned farther over, peering carefully. Then he saw it: a six-inch scrape along the teak brightwork that hid the deck joint.

“Sir, if that damage was there before we sailed yesterday, I would have noticed it. I’m sure of it.”

“He’s right,” the staff captain said. “This vessel is much too new to be dinged up like that.” She peered more closely. “And if I’m not mistaken, there’s something clinging to that splintered section, almost the same color as the wood.”

LeSeur squinted. The starboard hull was deep in afternoon shadow, but he thought he saw it, too.

Mason turned to the security officer. “See if you can retrieve it.”

The man nodded, then lay flat on the deck. While LeSeur and Kemper held his feet, the man ducked his head under the railing, then reached over the edge with his hand. He moved his arm around, grunting. Just when LeSeur thought he couldn’t get any wetter, the man cried out. “Got it!” he said.

They pulled him back from the edge of the deck and he got to his feet, something balled protectively in his hand. As the three crowded around, he slowly uncurled his fist.

Lying in his palm was a small cluster of fine threads, matted and soaked with spray. LeSeur heard Mason catch her breath. As she did so, he realized that the threads were all connected at one end to what looked like a small patch of skin. With a thrill of dismay he realized these were not threads at all, but hair—human hair, by the look of it, and platinum blonde.

“Mr. Kemper,” Mason said in a low, even voice. “Do you have that photograph of the missing woman?”

He removed a small portfolio from his pocket, opened it, drew out the photo, and handed it to the staff captain. She held it up, looked at it carefully, then looked back at the hair in the officer’s cupped palm.

“Oh, shit,” she murmured.

22

SPECIAL AGENT PENDERGAST STEPPED OUT OF HIS STATEROOM, closed the door, and started down the corridor. He was smartly dressed in a black tuxedo, and that, along with his purposeful stride and the eight o’clock hour, gave the distinct impression he was on his way to dinner.

But Pendergast would not be having dinner this evening. Rather, he would use the dinner hour to accomplish some business of his own.

Reaching a bank of elevators, he pressed the up button. When the doors slid open, he stepped in and pressed the button for Deck 13. In less than thirty seconds he was walking briskly down another corridor, headed forward.

Most of the passengers were at dinner or in the casinos, or taking in a show. Pendergast passed only two people, a maid and a cabin steward. At last the passage doglegged first right, then left, ending in the forward transverse corridor. This corridor was much shorter, and there were only two doors to his left: each led to one of the ship’s royal suites.

Pendergast stepped up to the first door, labeled Richard II Suite, and knocked. When there was no answer, he slipped an electromagnetic card out of his bag. The card was attached by a coiled wire to a palmtop computer concealed within the bag. He inserted the card into the door’s passkey slot, examined a readout on the unit’s tiny screen, then punched a series of numbers into the keypad. There was an electronic chirp and the LED on the doorlock went from red to green. With one more glance down the corridor he slipped inside and, closing the door behind him, paused to listen intently. He had already confirmed that Lionel Brock was at dinner; the suite appeared empty, silent and dark.

Pulling a small flashlight from his jacket, he made his way into the cabin. The four royal suites were not as large as the duplex or triplex apartments, but each was quite broad, occupying half of the forward superstructure of Deck 12 or 13 and overlooking the forecastle. According to the deck plan Pendergast had examined, the suites consisted of a large living room, dining room, kitchenette, lavatory, and two bedrooms with a connecting bath.

He stepped through the living room, shining his light over the surfaces. The room looked barely used; the maid had been in recently. The wastebasket was empty. The only thing even remotely curious about the room was that a freshly changed pillow lay at one side of the leather couch. On the passenger manifest, Brock was occupying the room by himself. Perhaps the man suffered from piles.

The only sign of occupancy was an unopened bottle of Taittinger sitting in a pedestal champagne bucket, the ice half melted.

Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, he went through the drawers of the side tables and the desk, finding only ship’s literature and remote controls for the television and DVD player. He lifted the wall paintings, peered behind each in turn, finding nothing. Stepping to the forward picture window, he quietly drew back the curtain. Far, far below, the Britannia’s bow sliced through the spume-tossed waves. The weather had steadily grown worse and the ship’s slow roll was now more pronounced.

Stepping back from the window, Pendergast moved to the kitchenette. It too looked unused: Brock was clearly taking his meals in the many ship’s restaurants. The refrigerator held only two more bottles of champagne. Quickly, Pendergast searched the drawers, finding nothing but cutlery and glassware. Then he moved to the dining room, then lavatory, giving them a quick examination. Next, the coat closet. None held anything of interest.

He stepped back out into the living room and paused to listen. All was silent. He glanced at his watch: quarter after eight. Brock had been scheduled for the eight o’clock seating at the King’s Arms and would not be back for at least ninety minutes.

The bedrooms lay to starboard. One door was closed, the other open. Pendergast stepped over to the open door, listened once again, then stepped inside. The bedroom was rather similar to his own: a king-sized bed with an extravagant canopy, two side tables, an armoire, writing desk and chair, a closet, and a door that no doubt led to the connecting bathroom. The room was clearly Brock’s.

It was the work of fifteen minutes to give the room a thorough search. More quickly now, he moved into the shared bathroom and gave the toiletries a brief inspection. Once again, he discovered little other than a confirmation of what he had already suspected: Brock’s cologne of choice was Floris Elite.

At the far end of the bathroom was a small dressing room with a door that connected to the second bedroom. Pendergast reached for the knob, intending to give the room only a cursory search—it seemed more and more likely that, if Brock was guilty of anything, the evidence would be found elsewhere than on the Britannia.

The door was locked.

Pendergast frowned. Returning to the living room, he tried the other door to the second bedroom. It, too, was locked.

Most intriguing.

He kneeled, examining the mechanism with his flashlight. It was a simple tumbler lock that would offer little resistance. He reached into his pocket and drew out a lockpick that resembled a small wire toothbrush. He inserted it into the lock, and in a moment the soft click of a tumbler signified success. Grasping the doorknob, he eased the door open into the dark room.

“Move and you’re dead,” came a harsh voice out of the blackness.

Pendergast went motionless.

A man stepped into view from behind the door, gun in hand. A woman’s sleepy voice came from the darkness of the bedroom: “What is it, Curt?”

Instead of answering, the man gestured at Pendergast with the gun, stepped through the door, shut and locked it behind him. He was a dark-haired man with acne scars and olive skin, handsome in a gangsterish way, very muscular. He carried himself like a prizefighter, but for a big man he could clearly move with consummate stealth. He was not a steward: he wore a dark suit rather than a uniform, and the material barely managed to stretch across his broad shoulders.

“All right, pal, who are you and what are you doing here?” Curt asked.

Pendergast smiled, nodded to a sofa chair. “May I? I’ve been on my feet all day.”

The man stood there, scowling, while Pendergast sat down and made himself comfortable, crossing one knee daintily over the other.

“I asked you a question, motherfucker.”

Pendergast pulled the bottle of champagne out of the melting ice, let the excess water drain off the outside, and with a deft twist unseated the cork. Two empty flutes stood to one side. He filled them both to the brim.

“Care to join me?” he asked.

The man raised the gun. “I’m just about out of patience. You got a problem, and it’s getting worse.”

Pendergast took a sip. “That makes two of us with a problem. If you would sit down, we could discuss them in comfort.”

“I don’t got a problem. You do. You got a

big

fucking problem.”

“I’m well aware of my problem. Youare my problem. You’re standing in front of me with a gun pointed at my head, and you seem to be losing your temper. Yes, a definite problem.” Pendergast took a sip, sighed. “Excellent.”

“You got one more chance to tell me who you are before I plaster your brains on the wall.”

“Before you do that, I might just point out that you have a far more serious problem than I.”

“Yeah? And what the hell’s that?”

Pendergast nodded toward the bedroom door. “Does Mr. Brock know you are entertaining a lady in his suite?”

An uneasy hesitation. “Mr. Brock’s got no problem with me entertaining ladies.”

Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But on top of that, if you attempt to ‘plaster’ anything on the wall, you’ll find yourself the unfortunate center of attention on this ship. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with a murder charge. If you’re not, it will be yourbrains decorating the wallpaper. I’m also armed, you see.”

Another hesitation. “I’m calling ship’s security.”

Pendergast took another sip. “You’re not thinking this through, Mr. Curt.” The man jabbed the gun at him. “It’s Johnson. Curtis Johnson. Not ‘Mr. Curt.’”

“Excuse me. Mr. Johnson. Even if it’s true Mr. Brock doesn’t mind you entertaining ladies while on duty, if you call security there may be questions raised about the cargo Mr. Brock has stored in that bedroom you are using as a love nest. On top of that, you don’t know who I am or why I’m here. For all you know I might beship’s security. And so, as I said, Mr. Johnson, we both have problems. I’m hoping there’s a way we can solve our respective problems intelligently, and to our mutual advantage.” He slowly inserted two fingers inside his tuxedo pocket.

“Keep your hands in view.”

Pendergast removed the fingers, which were now holding a small sheaf of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

The man stood, meaty hand clutching the gun, his face flushed and confused.

Pendergast dangled the money. “Lower the gun.”

The man lowered the gun.

“Go ahead, take it.”

The man reached out, snatched the money, shoved it in his pocket.

“We have to work quickly, Mr. Johnson, so that I’m gone by the time Mr. Brock returns.”

“You get the hell outta here. Now.”

“You take my money and still kick me out? How unsporting.”

Pendergast rose with a loud sigh, turned as if to leave, but the motion accelerated with mercurial quickness into the tossing of the glass of champagne in Johnson’s face while, with a simultaneous, lightning-fast motion, he brought his left fist down on Johnson’s wrist. The gun bounced on the rug and skidded halfway across the room. As Johnson let out a shout and dove for it, Pendergast tripped him up, then shoved his own Les Baer 1911 in the man’s ear, putting one knee at the base of his spine.

“

Doucement

, Mr. Johnson.

Doucement

.”

After a long moment, Pendergast stood up. “You may rise.”

The man sat up, rubbed his ear, and then stood. His face was a dark mass.

Pendergast stuck his own weapon back inside his jacket, walked across the room, picked up Johnson’s gun, hefted it.

“A Walther PPK. You’re a James Bond fan, I imagine. Perhaps we have less in common than I imagined.” He tossed it back to Johnson, who caught it, surprised. He held it, uncertain what to do.

“Be a smart fellow and put it away.”

Johnson holstered the weapon. “Now,” said Pendergast pleasantly, “here’s the choice, Mr. Johnson. You could be my friend, do me the tiniest of favors, and earn another thousand. Or you could continue to act out of misplaced loyalty to a contemptuous jackass of a man who underpays you and who will fire you the very minute he learns of your indiscretion and never think about you again. So—which is it, Mr. Johnson?”

The man stared at Pendergast for a long time, then nodded curtly.

“Splendid. Open the back bedroom, my newfound friend. There’s no time to waste.”

Johnson turned and went to the bedroom door, unlocked it. Pendergast followed inside.

“Curt, what the hell’s going on?” A woman with huge hair lay on the bed, the bedclothes pulled up to her chin.

“Get dressed and get out.”

“But my clothes are on the other side of the room,” she said. “I don’t have anything on.”

“Nobody gives a shit,” said Johnson roughly. “Get going.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

He waved the gun. “Move it!”

The woman jumped out of bed, heavy breasts flopping, snagged her clothes, and retreated into the bathroom. “Asshole!” came a second muffled insult.

Pendergast looked around. The bedroom, as he noted earlier, had been intended for storage: half a dozen large wooden crates were in view, all stamped

Fragile

and taking up much of the room.

“Do you know what is in these crates?”

“No idea,” said Johnson.

“But you were hired to keep an eye on them?”

“You got it.”

Pendergast walked back and forth in front of the crates for a moment. Then he kneeled before the nearest and removed a screwdriver from his bag.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Just taking a peek. We’re going to leave everything just as we found it. Nobody will know.” In a moment he had the end of the crate off, exposing green felt and padding. With a knife, he made a careful incision across several layers of padding, felt, and custom-cut pieces of Styrofoam, exposing a rack of what looked like oil paintings. Judging from the fact that the other five crates were of exactly the same dimensions, Pendergast deduced they were full of paintings as well.

He thrust his flashlight into the incision in the padding, moving it this way and that. There were eight paintings in all, unframed. From what he could see, they seemed to be all by second-tier impressionist artists—Charles Théophile Angrand, Gustave Caillebotte. There were also two German expressionist works, apparently by Jawlensky and the other, Pendergast guessed, by Pechstein. Obviously, the paintings were destined for Brock’s gallery on 57th Street.

While Pendergast immediately recognized the styles of the various painters, he recognized not one of the actual paintings themselves, at least what he could see of them. They were, at best, obscure examples of their artists’ oeuvre.

Reaching into his bag again, he pulled out a small leather case, which he unzipped and laid flat on the floor. He extracted several tools from the case—a jeweler’s loupe, a pair of forceps, a scalpel—and set them on the nearest crate. These were followed by stoppered test tubes.

Johnson shifted his weight uneasily from foot to foot. “Whatever the hell you’re doing, man, you’d better hurry it up.”

“Calm yourself, Mr. Johnson. Your employer won’t be back from dinner for some time yet. I’m almost finished.”

Kneeling before the nearest crate, Pendergast turned his attention to the Jawlensky painting. Picking up the tweezers, he plucked off a few threads of canvas from the back of the work, where the cut canvas was nailed to the frame. Next, using both the forceps and scalpel, he shaved away a small, built-up fragment of yellow paint from the very edge of the painting and placed it in the test tube. He moved on to the Pechstein and several of the others and did the same.

He checked his watch. Eight forty-five.

He rearranged the packing to disguise the cut he had made, screwed the end of the crate back in place, then rose with a smile. “Mr. Johnson,” he said, “my apologies for interrupting your evening.”

“Yeah, well, you still haven’t told me who you are or what you’re doing.”

“Nor will I, Mr. Johnson.”

They went into the living room and Pendergast turned to his host. “We have just enough time to enjoy another glass.” He refilled their glasses. Johnson drank his off in a shot, then set it down. Pendergast sipped his more slowly, then pulled another sheaf of bills from his pocket.

“As promised,” he said.

Johnson took them silently.

“You did well.” Pendergast smiled, gave a half bow, and departed quickly.

23

BACK IN THE SUITE, CONSTANCE FOUND PENDERGAST HUNCHED over a chemistry set. She watched as he dipped a cotton swab into a vial of a clear liquid and applied it to a paint chip in a test tube. Immediately, the fragment turned black.

He moved to another test tube and another, applying the same test. Finally he looked up. “Good evening, Constance.”

“Any results?”

He nodded to the tests. “Indeed. These paint samples all show unacceptable levels of lead. Our Mr. Lionel Brock has six crates of impressionist paintings in his spare bedroom, and if the rest are like these, they’re all forgeries. Brock must be employing a European art forger—a man of considerable talent—to imitate the work of minor artists, which he no doubt salts among his genuine paintings by major artists. Quite a clever scheme, really: nobody would question the authenticity of the second-tierpaintings carried by a dealer known to sell the finest, most scrupulously provenanced first-tierworks.”

“Clever indeed,” said Constance. “But it seems to me a man like that wouldn’t risk all this on a Tibetan artifact.”

“Exactly. We can strike him.” With a rustle, Pendergast produced his list. “I have also crossed off Lambe—the man’s as soft as risen dough.”

“How did you manage that? Impersonate a doctor?”

“Ugh. Let us not speak of it. I have also struck Claude Dallas from the list, as well as Lord Cliveburgh, who is busy smuggling cocaine. Strage is illegally exporting several extremely valuable and quite genuine Greek vases, and while this might lessen the chances that he’s also smuggling the Agozyen, we can’t quite rule him out. Which leaves us with three: Blackburn, Calderón, and Strage.” He turned his silver eyes on her. “How did your adventure belowdecks go?”

“I met the woman assigned to clean Blackburn’s triplex. Luckily—for us, anyway—she took over from another worker who apparently suffered a psychotic break shortly after departure and killed herself.”

“Indeed?” said Pendergast with sudden interest. “There’s been a suicide on board?”

“That’s what they say. She just stopped working in the middle of her shift, returned to her cabin, and had a breakdown. Later, she stabbed herself in the eye with a piece of wood and died.”

“How odd. And the woman who’s cleaning Blackburn’s triplex—what does she say?”

“He brought his own maid, and she lords it over the ship’s maid. Blackburn also had his suite redecorated for the crossing with his own furniture and artwork.”

“That would include his Asian art collection.”

“Yes. The same housekeeper I met also cleans Calderón’s stateroom, which is next door. It seems he picked up a lot of French antiques. Apparently, he’s as pleasant as Blackburn is obnoxious: he gave her a nice tip.”

“Excellent.” For a time, Pendergast’s eyes seemed to go far away. Slowly, they came back into focus.

“Blackburn is a strong number one on our list.” He reached in his pocket, withdrew yet another sheaf of crisp bills. “You are to temporarily switch places with the ship’s housekeeper assigned to Blackburn and Calderón’s rooms. Get in there when the suite is empty.”

“But Blackburn won’t let the ship’s maid in without his maid being there.”

“No matter—if you’re caught you can always chalk it up to bureaucratic error. You know what to look for. I would suggest going late this evening—Blackburn, I’ve noticed, is partial to baccarat and will probably be in the casino.”

“Very well, Aloysius.”

“Oh—and bring me his trash, please.”

Constance raised her eyebrows briefly. Then she nodded and turned toward the staircase, preparing to change for dinner.

“Constance?”

She turned back.

“Please be careful. Blackburn is one of our prime suspects—and that means he could well be a ruthless, perhaps psychopathic, killer.”

24

SCOTT BLACKBURN PAUSED AT THE ENTRANCE TO OSCAR’S TO BUTTON his Gieves & Hawkes bespoke suit, adjust his mauve tie, and survey the room. It was eight forty-five and the second seating was well under way: a horde of slim, elegant foreign waiters rushing in with the main courses under silver domes, which they brought to each table, laid down, and then—all at once, a waiter standing behind each diner—whipped off to reveal the dish underneath.

With a sardonic crook to his lip, Blackburn strolled over to his table. His two companions had already seated themselves and they rose obsequiously as he arrived. As well they should—Blackburn had invested several hundred million in their respective companies and sat on their boards’ compensation committees. Two bottles of burgundy already stood empty on the table, among the scattered remains of hors d’oevures, antipasti, and a first course of a smallish bird that might have been squab or pheasant. As he sat down he took one bottle into his hand and examined the label.

“Richebourg Domaine de la Romanée-Conti ’78,” he said. “You fellows are breaking out the good stuff.” He turned and poured out the heel into his own glass. “And you’ve left me with nothing but sediment!”

Lambe and Calderón laughed reverentially, and Lambe gestured for a waiter. “Bring out another of these from our private cellar,” he said. “One of the ones already opened.”

“Right away, sir.” The waiter glided off as silently as a bat.

“What’s the occasion?” Blackburn asked.

“We just thought we’d indulge ourselves,” Lambe said, rocking his soft, slumpy shoulders. Blackburn noticed that the man was less green about the gills than before. The weenie was, apparently, growing accustomed to the ocean.

“Why not?” Blackburn said. “This voyage is proving to be even more interesting than I anticipated. Among other things, I ran into an old girlfriend last night, and found her obliging– veryobliging. At first, anyway.”