Atomic Lobster (25 page)

PORT OF TAMPA

T
he cut-rate cruise promotion was a smashing success.

Thousands had assembled in front of the terminal by the time officials began calling out winning raffle numbers. News helicopters swooped overhead. A series of joyous cries erupted at random points throughout the crowd. “Yippee! I won!”

A megaphone rose again. “Six-two-nine.”

“Over here!” Another raffle stub flapped in the air. “That’s me!…”

“Seven-four-eight.”

“Me!…”

And so forth. Until the crowd realized it was getting near the end. An ugliness began to percolate. Profanity, shoving. Someone complained their winning ticket had been muscled away by thugs. Police moved in.

Meanwhile, a second front of robust activity. Dozens of winners who never intended to board the ship conducted a vigorous black-market trade in cruise tickets for premiums of a hundred dollars or more.

Serge walked out of a men’s room, leaving behind a scalper in an Oakland Raiders jacket happily filling his wallet with counterfeit bills.

“Did you get ’em?” asked Rachael.

Serge fanned out three tickets.

“Yes!” Coleman signaled touchdown. “The party continues!”

Back in the men’s room: The man in the Raiders jacket looked up at the sound of an opening door. “Need a ticket?…”

Moments later, an oversized man missing his left hand exited the men’s room with a ticket, a wallet of counterfeit money and a sporty new Raiders jacket.

Outside: The mob became surly as the most-hated people arrived. Cruise officials ushered VIP customers through express check-in.

“Booooo!” “Unfair!”

“Ow!” said Jim Davenport. “Something just hit my arm.”

“They’re throwing trash,” said Martha.

Extra security arrived. Jim pulled two rolling suitcases through the terminal entrance. “Martha, what exactly did the woman from the cruise say on the phone?”

“That they appreciated our previous business, and a special had opened up for local customers. Fifty percent off, plus a free upgrade.”

“Something doesn’t sound right.”

“Jim, you should just be thankful Debbie and Trevor reconciled.”

Jim looked back at his daughter and fiancé wheeling luggage behind him. “They’re really getting married on the cruise?”

“That’s what they said.”

The Davenports reached the part of the line where the towering ship became visible out the terminal’s windows. Up on the vessel’s fifth deck, four women looked over their balcony at a mass of people funneling onto the gangway.

“Finally,” said Edna. “I thought we’d never get going.”

The Davenports reached the hatch and showed their credentials. In they went. Boarding continued two by two, a Noah’s Ark cross-section of Tampa Bay: blue-collar, button-down, families, swingers, lawyers, defendants, Tex McGraw, Steelers fans, clowns and mimes.

Two kinds of people don’t have insurance. Super poor and super rich. The reason for the former is obvious. The latter is a function of
math. Probability and payoff. Some of the wealthiest Floridians don’t insure their homes—especially in the era of skyrocketing hurricane rates—because they can get a hefty return investing the premiums instead.

Gaylord Wainscotting found himself on the wrong side of the gamble. His Jaguar was parked cockeyed across the curb. Gaylord lay, facedown, on his charred lawn, screaming and kicking his feet.

A fire inspector stood over him. “You must have some kind of insurance.”

“None! I’m ruined! I might as well kill myself!”

“You don’t need to talk like that.”

“Easy for you.” He looked up with welling eyes. “The only thing left standing is my mailbox.”

“Please don’t do anything foolish.”

“What does it matter?” Gaylord got back in the Jaguar, ran over his mailbox and drove away.

Three people in a black Expedition pulled up. “Just about to come on the market,” said Steph.

A deep blast of a ship’s horn. The vessel inched away from the dock. Cheerful people lined balconies and waved. Others claimed coveted lounge chairs on the upper deck.

Coleman lay in his stateroom bed and pointed at the waving passengers on TV. “Serge, what DVD of yours are we watching?”

“Titanic
.”

A horn blew again, this one much louder. Coleman looked out their balcony. “Are we sailing yet?”

“Coleman, the land’s moving.”

“Sometimes it does that with me anyway.”

Serge stood at their cabin’s entertainment console, precisely arranging his personal collection of cruise DVDs.
Titanic, The Perfect Storm, PT-109, Das Boot, The Sinking of the Bismarck, The Sinking of the Andrea Doria, Poseidon, The Poseidon Adventure, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.
Then he lovingly removed his latest guy-gadget from a luggage pocket.

“What’s that?”

“Sixty-gig personal digital movie viewer,” said Serge. “Five-inch LCD screen in the letterbox format. Big-time movie magic in the elegant simplicity of a compact, travel-friendly package. I downloaded all my flicks into it.”

“Why?”

“It’s a cruise. I don’t want to stay cooped up in my cabin the whole time.” He turned it on. People began screaming and drowning. “This way I can walk around the ship enjoying movies.”

Serge began unpacking.

Coleman hung his beer bong from a mirror.

Rachael found the key to the mini-bar.

Serge ran by.

Coleman sat back on the bed with rolling papers.

Rachael came over with an armload of miniatures.

Serge ran the other way.

For Coleman and Rachael, any type of trip in straight condition was cause for panic. To be on the safe side, they began toking and pouring. Serge ran by. He probed every nook, switched every switch, set the electronic combination on the safe, tightened the roll-proof luggage restraints, turned the temperature all the way down in the micro-fridge, changed the safe’s combination, tested the ship’s internal phone system—
“Hello?” “This is Room Service.” “Just checking”
—stowed all his gear, restowed it, reset the safe, grabbed a digital camera, stuck his personal movie viewer in a pocket, opened the door to the hall and called to Coleman and Rachael. “Let’s not waste time in the room.”

Sunset was a postcard.

It drew an overflow audience to the pool deck. A Calypso band set the mood. A dozen daiquiri bars had Disney World lines. Some passengers swam, others lounged and read paperbacks by the fading light. But most were at the western railing with drinks and cameras.

Serge and Coleman leaned against their own remote section of rail, apart from the others, toward the fantail with the lifeboats. Serge was busy with his camera, and Coleman stuck his head inside
the neck hole of his T-shirt to light a joint under current wind conditions.

Click, click, click. Serge lowered his camera and turned to the headless man. “What a view! I’m in a fuckin’ fantastic mood! How about you? Can you dig it?”

“Absolutely.” Coleman’s head popped out. “Big boats are perfect for smoking dope.”

“That was in
Moby-Dick
, right?”

“No, really. Absolutely safe. Ocean breeze clears the smell, and you hold the joint over the side. That way, even if The Man spots you, just flick it in the water. What’s he gonna do?”

Serge paused and lifted his chin toward the horizon. “This has to be the most majestic sunset I’ve seen in my entire life. Let’s stop and take it in the way God meant it to be.” He reached in his pocket and began watching his personal movie viewer.

Coleman looked over at the tiny screen. “Where do I know that theme song from?”

“This thing also downloads old TV shows. It’s
The Love Boat
.”

“I loved that show,” said Coleman.

“American classic,” said Serge. “Populated entirely by guest stars whose careers had been tagged ‘do not resuscitate.’”

“Is that Charles Nelson Riley?”

“I’m still pissed they canceled
Lidsville
.”

Rachael returned from one of the drink lines sipping a zombie. She wanted a hit of Coleman’s weed and tapped him on the shoulder.

Coleman jumped. “The Man!” He flung the joint over the side. The wind brought it back. A small explosion of sparks in Coleman’s face. “Ahhhhh! My eyes!”

Rachael chased the windblown roach across the deck and stomped on it.

“Don’t ruin this for me,” said Serge. “The Skyway bridge is coming up. I’ve always wanted to sail under the Skyway.”

Coleman blinked a few times. “I’m not blind. Good.” He looked over the railing. “Wow! We’re way the hell up here!”

“People don’t realize the incredible freeboard these things have,”
said Serge. “The swimming pool back there is like twenty stories high.”

“Doesn’t look like we’ll be able to fit under the Skyway.”

“We will,” said Serge, “but just barely.” Click, click, click. “Let’s dig the approach.”

Rachael arrived with a flat joint. “Got a light?”

“Here.”

She stuck her head inside her shirt.

MEANWHILE…

T
he highway trooper was out of his patrol car, pleading desperately. Suicide counselors arrived. “It’s not as bad as you think. Let’s talk…”

“What’s to talk about?” said Gaylord Wainscotting, hitching a leg over the railing for his death leap.

“Don’t do it!”

“Life’s not worth living.” Wainscotting pushed off, diving from the highest point of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.

He fell a short distance and splashed into the swimming pool of the SS
Serendipity
. He bobbed to the surface and looked around. “Fuck.” He got out and took a seat at a bar.

Three people walked behind his stool.

Coleman and Rachael tugged Serge’s sleeves. “Stop!” “There’s a bar!”

He kept walking. “There’ll be another shortly.”

“How do you know?” asked Coleman.

“The first law of cruise ships: Passengers must always be within thirty feet of booze.”

The trio continued across the Lido Deck, passing the Poolview Bar, the Oceanview Bar, the Terrace Bar, the Vista Bar, Tradewinds, Windjammers, Rumrunners, Schooners, Barnacles, Harpoon Hank’s, Crabby Bill’s, the Rusty Anchor, the Crow’s Nest, the Captain’s Table, and the Poop Deck.

“Coleman…
Coleman
?” Serge looked around. “Where are you?”

“Serge! Look!” Coleman stood with arms outstretched. “I can touch two different bars at the same time. Jesus loves me.”

“Will you stop fooling around and come on?”

Rachael’s turn to veer off. She headed up a staircase to the highest sundeck on the ship, wrapped around one of the smokestacks.

“Where’s she going?” asked Coleman.

Serge directed his attention to a sign near the bottom of the stairs.
CLOTHING OPTIONAL
.

“What’s that mean?”

Serge told him.

“Wait,” said Coleman. “You mean all these years I’ve seen that sign, there were naked babes?”

“This is what I keep trying to tell you,” said Serge. “If you’re going to live in this country, you need to speak the language.”

They continued toward the bow. A growing crowd had begun following Serge. They passed an elevator. The doors opened. The Davenports stepped out.

“I can’t believe my baby’s getting married,” said Martha. “It’s going to be the most beautiful wedding ever. They’ll stand right there under the waterslide.”

Debbie squeezed Trevor’s arm. “It’s going to be a sunset ceremony.”

They walked by the restrooms and into the atrium.

A restroom door opened behind them. An immense figure with one hand stepped out and headed toward the stern, continuing a sweep of the ship for his prey. He passed a handsomely chiseled man in a white uniform walking the other direction. An Iowa State freshman clung to his arm. “You’re really the captain?” They climbed through a port hatch onto the forward deck and heard yelling.

A man stood precariously at the very point of the bow. Dolphins frolicked below as the ship knifed through the sea. Serge raised his head into the wind.
“I’m the king of the world!”

He stepped down and turned to the crowd that had been following. “Okay, you guys try. Let’s build that confidence!”

Someone with big, floppy shoes stepped up.
“I’m the king of the world!”
The next person with a rubber ball for a nose:
“I’m king…”
Again and again.

A retired couple from Walla Walla reclined on a pair of loungers facing the other way. The wife was trying to read. “What’s all that noise?”

Her husband looked over his shoulder. “People yelling
‘I’m the king of the world!’
Like in
Titanic.
”

She turned a page. “Who’s yelling?”

“Bunch of clowns.”

“No kidding.”

Four elderly women walked in front of the couple.

“Any sign of Steve and his friends?”

“No,” said Edna. More yelling from the bow. “What are those clowns doing?”

“Titanic.”

“That reminds me,” said Ethel. “I saw this beautiful necklace in the galleria called the Heart of the Ocean, exact replica of the one Kate Winslet wore in the movie.”

“Just a cheap fake.”

“No, the duty-free lady told me it was one hundred percent genuine tanzanite. Very rare.”

“A gem so rare it can only be found on cruise ships.”

The women stepped through a hatch and onto the starboard passageway. “Where
are
those guys?”

They scooted over to make way for an oncoming line of six men in shorts and tropical shirts, the same ones who had formed the undercover perimeter around the cruise terminal the day before. Foxtrot’s backup team.

Actually, they weren’t a real backup team. The primary unit was unavailable, on stakeout at Orlando International for a major ecstasy shipment from Rotterdam. These were six desk agents who constantly filed requests for a field assignment because they’d never had one. This was their first case. They were the
Backup
Backup Team. They were jazzed.

“I can’t wait to meet Foxtrot!”

“How will we know who he is?”

“We’re not supposed to know.”

“Why not?”

“We’re just backup. Foxtrot will only reveal himself if something goes wrong. If not, we’ll never know who he was.”

“Darn, I was hoping to meet him.” They all stepped through a hatch onto the forward deck. “The guy’s a freakin’ legend.”

“Freakin’ head case from what I hear.”

“That’s what makes him so good—”

“I’m the king of the world!”

The tropical shirts stopped. “What’s that yelling?”

Serge was back up on the rail, showing the others how to project with more intensity. He climbed down. “Just keep repeating and you’ll get the hang of it. I’ll check back later.” He headed toward the starboard hatch. Coleman followed. “I still don’t understand how we got this cruise so cheap.”

“There are even better deals,” said Serge. “When you’re older, you can be a ballroom dancer and take all the cruises you want for free.”

“Free?”

“Rich widows need someone to dance with.”

“What do you have to do?”

Serge nodded politely at the approaching line of tropical shirts. “Just don’t step on their toes during the fox-trot.”

“Fox-trot?” said Coleman.

The tropical shirts turned as the pair walked by.

“You hear what that guy just called him?”

Two floors below, Promenade Deck, Agent Foxtrot anonymously joined the thick foot traffic flowing down nightclub row. It was called Boulevard of Dreams. Everyone had life preservers.

An emergency bell clanged three times. Passengers streamed up stairwells to their muster stations for the Coast Guard–required safety drill at the beginning of every cruise that everyone hated.

“Hold up!” yelled Serge, running into a restaurant and waving a preserver over his head. “Did I miss anything?”

“Sir, you’re on time,” said the calming voice of the crew member in charge of the muster station. “Just relax.”

“Relax?” said Serge. “On one of these boats? Not after that rogue wave hit your other ship. Didn’t flip like in the movies, but all those ambulances at the dock probably weren’t the photos you wanted to see in the papers.”

“Sir,” the crew member said in an urgent whisper. “Please lower your voice.”

“Oh, right. Better not get them hysterical to the point where they start counting lifeboats, because there aren’t enough. I counted.”

Something crashed into Serge from behind. “Coleman, what are you doing with that life preserver around your face?”

“Can’t…breathe…”

“Because you got the strap around your neck three times. Put down that drink and let me help you.”

“Sir, is your friend okay?”

“Not even close.”

Serge finished refitting Coleman’s flotation device, and the crew member got everyone’s attention. “The safety drill will now begin….” More of a talk than a drill. All the brainless things you’re not supposed to do. “…No open fires in staterooms, no hanging off the outside of balconies—”

A shrill, piercing sound. The safety leader covered his ears in pain.

Serge waved something in the air. “Look at this really cool whistle I found in my life preserver! Can I keep it?”

“Sir, please…”

“Sorry.”

“As I was saying…” The safety leader resumed his seemingly endless list of instructions. He stopped and looked around. “Do I hear screaming?”

Serge held up his movie viewer. “
Poseidon Adventure
. The original, not the remake with Kurt Russell…Ouch, that guy just fell in burning oil.”

“Sir, please turn that off for the remainder of the safety drill.”

“Sorry, you’re right. Undivided attention!” Serge pulled a signal
mirror from his pocket and held it to his face at a forty-five-degree upward angle.

The safety leader forgot where he’d left off, and started his talk again from the beginning. Someone bumped into his back. He stumbled and turned. Serge stumbled the other way and caught his balance.

“Sir…”

Serge angled the mirror to his face again and began walking. “I’m listening. Go ahead.” He passed in front of the safety leader and crashed into a table.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?” Serge tripped over a chair. “Learning to walk on the ceiling.”

“This is the safety drill!”

“Exactly. I’m doing extra credit for the capsize part.”

“Sir!”

Serge passed in front of the safety leader again. “Can’t be too prepared for the capsize part, especially ceiling-walking. Make one wrong turn at a chandelier and you end up banging on the sealed bulkhead of a flooding compartment: ‘Dear God, I’m sorry for not paying attention during the safety drill!
Glub, glub, glub, glub, glub.
’ That’s no way to take a cruise.”