Buzz Cut (22 page)

Maybe she was overreacting. Butler had stalked off in a rage. He'd jiggered the lock, trapped her there. But that didn't necessarily mean she was in danger. By the time he returned, the storm might have churned itself out. She could apologize. Claim he'd misunderstood, that she'd waited after all. When he was asleep she could sneak off the ship. Get the hell out of there.

She went out to the balcony again. Took several deep breaths, leaned against the railing and gazed at the city lights. The flashy skyline of Miami's downtown. Butler was right about that much. The men who built those monstrous skyscrapers were obsessives. She knew about their kind. Growing up, she'd watched her father's relentless labor as ship after ship in the Fiesta navy was constructed and put into service. The planning, the focus. The complex engineering, the rivet-by-rivet labor.

It took people like him, the Morton Sampsons, men capable of brutal concentration, to build such things. People willing to sacrifice everything, their families, friends, their own leisure, so the grand structures of the earth could rise. Like the men she'd studied in college, painters, the great masters. Men driven by fanatical fixations. Madmen, social misfits.

To leave a lasting mark on the world, it seemed you had to sustain a passion so intense that every other aspect of life was subsumed by it. Everything those men did collected around one powerful core. Their homes, their families, their mistresses, even their gardens and their pets, every detail of their lives seemed chosen to serve their greater need.

Each was powered by some unfathomable hunger. Like Butler Jack, an impossible ideal at the center of his whirlwind. A vacuum with Monica Sampson's face. As if it were some law of nature, the deeper the lack, the emptier the core, the more fierce the passion that swirled around it.

It was no consolation that Monica had inspired in another what she'd been unable to achieve herself. Sure, she had her drawings. But they were a pleasure, not a need. Done for her own amusement, no spiritual passion burning there. The only thing remotely close to a craving she'd known was her desire to escape the easy, privileged life mapped out for her.

Back inside the cabin Monica paced the floor until at last she came to rest on the edge of the bed. She tried to push the fear away, tried to get back the easy rhythm in her pulse. But there was a cold sweat building on her flesh. Just on the edge of her consciousness, a feverish panic. This was all wrong. She had no business being there, a week at sea with Butler Jack and her father and a few thousand of his worshipers. And David Cruz. Hearing his name on Butler's lips had made her light-headed. That Butler knew David, knew about their romance from years ago. Jesus H. Christ.

And the door locked. Monica, a hostage.

All of it coming bitterly clear to her in that moment. So stupid not to have seen it before, not to have felt the manipulation, the neat little trap Butler had set.

He'd located her somehow. To render her vulnerable he'd probably sneaked into her room at Sugarloaf, stolen her nest egg. When he was ready to move, he'd telephoned her father, informed him where she was hiding. All that bullshit about Morton spying on her, Jesse in on it, that was just to motivate her, alienate her from her friends, pry her loose. Jesse didn't admit it. He'd been aghast when she confronted him. And after Morton took a look around the place, he must've thought it was a hoax. That's why he hadn't stayed around, called in the Royal Canadian Mounties.

Butler timing it all just right. Luring her on his trip, getting her on board. Didn't even have to resort to violence. Just seduced her, talked her along. Had her passport waiting. Jesus, how outrageously naive she'd been. Butler had kidnapped her without her even knowing. He was going to trade her for money. Collect the ransom Morton had offered years ago.

She stood up, took several deep breaths. She began to inspect the room again. Had to get out of here. Had to escape before the ship left port tomorrow afternoon. Eyes roaming, coming to rest on the fire sprinkler mounted above the bathroom door.

She pulled the chair away from the door, positioned it beneath the sprinkler. On the bureau she found a glass ashtray with a book of Fiesta Cruise Line matches. She snatched them up, climbed the chair, and scratched one into flame beneath the sprinkler head.

The flame tickled at the plastic seal but nothing happened. Four matches later, still nothing. She climbed down and began to search. Complimentary postcards in one drawer, a plastic laundry bag in another. In the top drawer of the bedside table she found a Gideon Bible. She looked at it for a moment, riffled the pages. With a grunt, she gripped the first half-dozen pages from Genesis and ripped them free. She rolled them into a tight cigar, mounted the chair again, and lit the end.

She held the feeble flame to the sprinkler head, the pages withering to black flakes, ashes falling to the floor around her, but it didn't even scorch the seal. She tore more pages out, rolled them into a cylinder and wadded a couple inside the open end, lit the torch, stabbed it close to the sprinkler, held it till she could feel the sting of flame against her fist.

She worked all the way to Psalms before the matches were used up. Tossing the Bible to the floor, she stepped down. Cheap-ass paper. The flimsy stuff probably couldn't reach a kindling temperature sufficient to melt ice.

She went back out to the balcony, looked out. Fighting back the rising terror. She stared down at the ten-story drop to the dock. She supposed she could rip the sheets into strips, let herself down. But with only two sheets and a bedspread she couldn't make it more than two or three decks.

She went over to the door, hammered her fist against it. Hammered till her hand was swollen and sore. She called out. She yelled help. She yelled fire. Fire, fire, fire. Her voice swallowed up by the deadening acoustics of the ship. One in the morning by now, two. Someone on the crew might hear her if they happened to be directly outside the door, but if it was Butler instead, things could turn ugly. He might tie her up, gag her. Or worse. She'd have to pretend she was still compliant. Pretend she didn't suspect his plan.

She drew a breath, blew it out. Turned around and went across to the sliding door and pulled it closed. She sat down on the edge of the bed, steadied her breathing, held her hands up before her face, tried to still the jitter. Put herself in a trance.

Thinking now that her best chance might be to use the one reliable skill she'd always had. An awful thought, but that was perhaps the best weapon she had. Monica got up and set the lights low. She stood before the mirror and undid the top three buttons on her dress, spread the fabric to show her cleavage. She made a pout. Then she lay down on the bed, propped herself up on the pillows, cocked up a provocative leg, experimented with different smiles. She watched the door.

***

It was after ten on Sunday morning when Monica jerked awake. Nearly noon before her pounding finally got someone's attention in the corridor, a crew member with limited English. She called out for him to find someone to open her door. It was stuck. Stuck, the man repeated. Locked, she said. The crew member told her to turn the bolt. She said it was stuck. Would not work. Get an engineer. Get somebody to open the door.

For an hour she waited, fretting that he had misunderstood. Her gloom deepening. Finally at one-thirty the engineer arrived. He investigated the problem for a few minutes, then had to go back and find the proper tools. At three forty-five the door finally swung open.

A young Italian in a blue jumpsuit and yellow hardhat stood in the hallway, smiling proudly. The dismantled lock lay on the floor at his feet.

"I never saw anything like this," the young Italian said. "Someone plays a bad prank with you. He is destroying the lock completely."

"I need to get off the ship," she said.

"Too late," the Italian engineer said. "She is leaving now."

Monica wasted a minute waiting vainly for the elevator then ran down eight flights of stairs to the A Deck gangway. But the young Italian was right. All exits were sealed. The
Eclipse
was under way.

***

At four on Sunday the nineteenth of November the big hawsers were thrown clear and the M.S.
Eclipse
drew away from the docks. Its turbines murmuring pleasantly as the ship crept down Government Cut toward the Atlantic.

Thorn stood at the forward railing of the Sports Deck wearing one of Fiesta Boutique's high-fashion outfits, a red and white striped polo shirt and a pair of baggy green swimming trunks. Thorn the Christmas tree. All he needed was an angel for a hat.

He was following Sugarman's orders. Fitting in, just another passenger. Eyes open, looking for Freddy Megawatt, Butler Jack. Tall, well-built guy. Long blond hair, though of course he could be wearing a wig, a disguise. Not likely he'd be expecting to see Thorn aboard. But just the same he should keep his back covered. Stay vigilant.

Thorn watched as Miami slipped past, the luxury islands on the north side of the ship, big Mediterranean bungalows inhabited by a new crop of movie people and their bankers, and to the south were the cargo islands full of orange containers and gawky cranes that lifted an endless stream of stolen Land Cruisers and Mercedeses onto departing ships. Reggae music was piping out of the overhead speakers, played by a band one deck below. Most of the rest of the two thousand passengers were assembling along the railings, umbrella drinks in hand, cameras ready, a festive hubbub. A few waiters in outfits even gaudier than Thorn's wriggled through the crowd with trays of conch fritters and barbecued shrimp.

South Beach was coming up fast with its tropical sunrise colors, pink and aquamarine, its zany architecture. Once when Thorn was young, Kate Truman had taken him on an educational excursion to view the strip of Art Deco hotels, and a couple of times since he'd revisited, catching it at other moments of its cycle. Decline, decay, rejuvenation. Deco was a style Thorn had never developed an affection for. Too self-conscious, a silly sci-fi look with a coldly industrial tinge. So clearly a fad. Hot today, look out tomorrow.

As the ship moved beyond the mouth of the channel, he was surprised to feel the same tease of pleasure he'd always known at the outset of any journey to sea. Mingled now with the heady relief of knowing Sugar was alive, of being back in his orbit.

He found himself enjoying the tousling breeze, the tantalizing exit from the civilized world. He listened to the band doing its best to crank the party into happy mode. Loopy and rambunctiously gay island music. Not bad really, though he'd never decoded the lyrics to any reggae yet. As they eased past the final channel markers and beyond the pilot station and settled into the rhythms of a five-foot sea, he kept his face into the wind, sensed the land slipping away behind them.

An hour ago he'd called Rochelle ship-to-shore.

"I'm going on a cruise."

"How nice for you." Her voice slack.

"Nassau, Jamaica, Cozumel, and back. Six days."

She was silent.

"I thought maybe you could fly to Nassau," he said, "meet the ship on Monday. We could have a romantic interlude."

"Fly to Nassau?"

"A cabin to ourselves. Lots of room. Everything's paid for."

"Is Sugarman okay?"

"He was attacked, but he's recovering. A little groggy and weak still."

"He's okay, but you're going on this cruise anyway?"

"The guy that attacked him is on the ship somewhere. We're searching for him."

"So what is it you have in mind, Thorn, we're going to have this romantic interlude between gun battles?"

A few strained seconds went by.

"How's Rover doing?" he said.

"He walks around the house. He sniffs the bottoms of the doors like you're hiding behind them."

"And you?"

"I'm not a dog," she said. "I know you're not here."

"You're sure you don't want to join me?"

Rochelle breathed into the receiver. "Of course I do. But I can't."

"Why?"

"We need to talk," she said. "When you get back."

"Rochelle? Look, I'm sorry you're upset. But we can fix this. I'm sure we can."

"I'm moving my things back to my apartment," she said. "I think it's best."

He groaned and felt something heavy sink inside him. "You don't need to do that, Rochelle."

"I've decided. Don't even try to talk me out of it."

"All right," he said quietly. "If that's what you want."

"No, Thorn. That's what
you
want. You just don't know how to say it."

Thorn perched on the edge of his queen bed, stared at the blank TV set across the room, hearing the echo of silence on the line. Missing his chance. Abstaining. Things being agreed to, things unraveling forever in the grim hush.

"You're a loner, Thorn. We're both goddamn loners. It had no hope, never. We were stupid. We conned ourselves. The only thing we have in common is we're both cripples. One functioning heart between the two of us."

Rochelle's voice trembled as if a crack were opening up along a familiar fault line. The habits of grief and mourning replayed yet again. Thorn had had this conversation before as well, had it too often, but never on a phone. Something about the electronics flattened out her voice, kept the shrill parts suppressed. He couldn't see her eyes. Couldn't move with her around the room, perform that brutal waltz of recrimination and remorse, the final slashing of the cord. He was speechless, holding that dead piece of plastic in his hand, pressing her flattened voice to his ear. An ache hollowing out his gut.

"Have a good cruise," she said.

A buzz of static rose and fell.

"You too," he said. "You too."

A second went by, another, a final chance at something, then she clicked off.

Now Thorn leaned against the railing, stared out to sea. He refused yet another pink drink. Waved off the platter of conch fritters and barbecued shrimp. Kept his face into the breeze, watching the blue water grow steely, the disorganized chop turn to steady rollers. The big ship plowed into the Gulf Stream with the ease of a giant harvester moving through new wheat. With the Atlantic a ten-story drop below, it felt more like gliding along in a hot air balloon than riding a boat at sea.