DOUBLE KNOT (18 page)

“Why in the world would I lie about something like this?” I asked. “Please, Arlinda.
Please come down here.” And turn on your phone.

Nothing.

I pulled out the last trick I had up my sleeve. “I have your tips.”

I waited. And waited.

“How’d you get my tips?” she asked. “And how’d you get my V2?”

“Your V2 fell and I have your tips because my cat has been climbing the wall.”

“You have a
cat
on this ship?”

Well.

“Okay, move,” she finally said. “I’m coming down.”

It took Fantasy and Mother to haul me up from the floor and out of Arlinda’s way.
We listened intently as she slid down. A shoe knocked its way down. It was an Alexander
Wang bone pump. Four-inch heel. Then the other shoe dropped. Fantasy showed them to
Mother. “Now, these are high heels.” Finally, we saw one bare foot appear in the hole
in the gauntlet gray, then another. Then one long brown leg, then its mate.

“Now what?” Arlinda’s voice was much closer. “I’m stuck.”

“That last curve is a booger bear,” Mother said.

It took ten minutes to figure out how to get Arlinda, several inches taller than Mother,
out of the wall she was wedged in. Fantasy pulled her by the ankles until she had
room to flip over, then pulled again, Mother directing traffic the whole time, which
wasn’t helping a bit, and finally Arlinda Smith appeared. The three of us crowded
around and got our first good look at her as she dusted herself off. Then she took
inventory of our motley crew. She took a step back and bumped into the gauntlet gray
wall. Her eyes were darting and wild.

I believe we frightened her.

“Give her some space,” I said.

Mother and Fantasy moved in closer.

Arlinda squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and bravely asked, “Where’s my
V2?”

I held up a finger to my crew—I got this. “What’s directly above us?”

“My changing room and my locker,” she said. “Where’s my phone? Where are my tips?”

“Why is the ship stopped?”

“Engine trouble. Where’s my phone? Where are my tips?” She was considerably taller
than me and a lot less, or let’s say not at all, pregnant, with china-doll skin, short
dark shiny hair, and bright chocolate-brown eyes. She was wearing two ounces of a
navy blue sailor suit. It was barely past a bikini. “I’m really confused,” she said.
“I don’t understand what’s going on.”

Get. In. Line.

“Can I have my V2?” Arlinda’s shiny hair bounced as her head jerked around the room.
She rocked back and forth on her bare feet. Her voice shook when she said, “I really
don’t think I should be here.”

“It’ll be okay, Arlinda,” I tried to reassure her.

“Can I have my V2? And my tips? Please?”

“Yes,” I said. “You can have them. I’ll give everything to you if you’ll give us fifteen
minutes. Just fifteen minutes.”

Her chin trembled.

“Arlinda, I promise you no one here will hurt you. I promise.”

Her eyes swept the room again—the remnants of our chicken sandwich picnic; snoring
Jess, sprawled out like a drunk prom date in her red undies; Anderson Cooper, ho-hum,
grooming her little paws like these were the kinds of escapades she witnessed daily;
Mother in her Party Suit and Traveltime Cloggers, animated and energized by her adventure;
six feet of Fantasy plus two feet of hair, tapping an impatient foot, hands on hips;
and, well, me. Arlinda’s eyes stopped at the remnants of Bianca’s Monique Lhuillier
gown in a pile of silk streamers on the gray shag carpet at her feet. She kept her
eyes on it as she asked, her voice hollow and thin, “Who are you people?”

Just then, behind us, Jess woke like we’d dumped a load of ice on her, long bare legs
flying through the air, one enormous breast escaping the confines of her red demi
bra. She sat straight up on the ottoman. “SO? SO? SO? SO? SO? SO?”

Arlinda didn’t take her eyes off mine as she stooped and batted blindly for her Alexander
Wangs. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t help you.” She tucked her shoes under an
arm and held out her hand for her V2 and tips. “I promise I’ll send help. I promise
I will send help in five minutes. But I can’t help you.”

Fantasy shifted her weight and sighed, then spoke to the chandelier. “Arlinda. That’s
not an option. You’re here and we need you.”

“No.” Arlinda was on her way through the rabbit hole in the wall. “You can keep my
things. I’m sorry.”

She was making a run for it.

Fantasy looked at me. “Why is she doing this to me?”

I shrugged.

The top half of Arlinda had disappeared, but the back half of her froze when she heard
the unmistakable sound of a 9mm round being racked into the chamber of a handgun.
“Arlinda,” Fantasy said it on a huge sigh. “Get back here.”

And then the hostages in 704 had a hostage of their own.

SEVENTEEN

A door off the foyer led to the dining room, a long skinny room that connected to
the kitchen by a large pass-through serving window. I’d poked my head in the dining
room last night when I was looking for a way out, but hadn’t spent any time there
until now. I thought it best to get Arlinda out of my dressing room. Change of scenery
and all.

We filed in through the foyer, Fantasy wagging the Hi-Point C-9 behind 704’s newest
and most petrified guest, and made the dining room Mission Control. Maybe, with the
laptop and Arlinda’s help, I could assess the danger level outside of 704.

Jess tried to comfort Arlinda. “They’re really nice,” she told her. “They haven’t
killed me.”

“Really?” Arlinda was barefoot and wearing a scuba blue Givenchy cashmere blazer of
Bianca’s over her bikini sailor suit. “Good to know.”

Mother said, “That ugly statue is gone.” A directional light pointed at nothing on
a marble display stand in the foyer.

“How about that,” said dumbstruck Fantasy. “Wonder what happened to it?”

In keeping with the simple décor throughout 704, the dining room was tastefully underdone,
with a long white-oak parson table surrounded by eight white linen armless chairs
on wheels. Under all that, a wheat sisal rug. Above all that, two birdcage chandeliers
on a dimmer switch. I cranked them up.

We spread our goodies across the table, everything, including Fantasy’s gun, with
the exception of Arlinda’s V2 and tips, which I wasn’t about to hand over. Yet. I
sat at the head of the table and indicated I’d like Arlinda to sit beside me. She
fully complied.

We settled in.

“Would anyone like a cup of coffee?” Mother asked.

“I’d love some coffee,” Jess said.

Fantasy seconded that motion.

I looked at Arlinda, who nodded, because she was too afraid not to. I think I could
have offered her a cup of battery acid and she’d have gone along with it.

My hands clasped on the table, the laptop and
The Compass
in front of me, I turned to our guest. “I’m not Bianca Sanders.”

She whimpered, a short desperate little noise.

“My name is Davis Way Cole and I work for the Bellissimo.”

“You’re Mr. Cole’s wife?”

My head dropped. My eyes landed on my babies. I spoke to them. “Yes.” Mr. Cole, my
husband, the father of my twins, whom I hadn’t spoken to in almost thirty hours.

“I’m her mother.” Mother waved.

“I’m her partner.” Fantasy waved.

Jess sat there, lounging across the dining room table with her stack of dead V2s,
trying to figure out who she was in relation to me. I finally said, “That’s Jessica.”

Arlinda passed around an unsteady smile.

Mother went to push back from the table without remembering the chair was on wheels.
She let out a roller-coaster whoop, laughed at herself, and for a split second the
thick tension in the room dissipated. “I’ll go see about that coffee.”

To our guest, I said, “You are our first contact with anyone outside of this suite
since before we left Biloxi. And we need your help.”

“You look just like Mrs. Sanders.”

She knew who Bradley and Bianca were. “Do you work for the Bellissimo, Arlinda?”

She nodded yes. Then she shook her head no. Which was to say she did, but she didn’t
plan on ever setting foot in the Bellissimo again. “I’m a server in high stakes. I’m
one of several Bellissimo high-stakes servers on
Probability
.”

“Well, you just got a big fat raise, Arlinda.”

She wasn’t impressed.

“Yes, I look like Mrs. Sanders. I’m who you see at the Bellissimo and in media when
you think you’re seeing her. I’m her body double.”

She was a little impressed.

“Are you?” Her eyes were fixed on my middle. “Are you really expecting or are you
being her body double?”

I patted my babies. “All me.”

“Do you need a doctor?” Arlinda asked. “Are you having your baby
now
?” She inched away from me as Mother appeared in the doorway with a pot of coffee
and four martini glasses.

“She’s not ready yet,” Mother said. “She looks like she’s about to go, but she’s carrying
twins. They don’t know what kind of twins because they’re waiting to be surprised.
She’s carrying low, has been since she started showing, so I think she’s having boys.”
She stopped at Fantasy. “Move that thing.” Fantasy picked up the gun and tucked it
at her hip. Arlinda let out a barely audible sigh of relief. Mother stopped at Jess.
“Get your elbows off the table.” Jess’s hands slid into her lap. “These will be my
first grandsons.” Mother poured steaming hot coffee into Arlinda’s martini glasses.
“She’s got another sixteen weeks or so, but you know doubles come early.”

Well, look who could write a book.

Arlinda considered the martini glasses curiously and she was the last to pick one
up by the stem to take a sip. When she did, she waited to drop dead. When she didn’t,
she took another sip. She opened her mouth to say something, changed her mind, then
tried again.

“Go ahead, Arlinda.”

“My V2,” she said. “Let me have it. I’ll turn it on and you can call the police.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said.

“Why not?”

“The ship is smart,” I said. “Very smart.”

“Oh, I know.” Arlinda nodded.

“If I were holding an entire suite hostage,” I said, “the first thing I’d do would
be to monitor the electronic activity in it.” I didn’t bother her with the deadly
consequences details in the letter that were directly connected to attempts at communication.
“I can see where making a call on your V2 would look like the easiest way out. But
we’re sitting dead still in the middle of the sea. I can’t call the police, the Coast
Guard, or anyone else who could get here faster than someone on this ship could get
here and do us harm. Not to mention it would jeopardize you. The person or people
who locked us in here would know the call came from inside this suite and from your
V2.”

Mother said, “Davis is a thinker like that. Always has been. She gets that from her
daddy.”

Arlinda was so pasty pale.

“We need to approach it from a different angle,” I said. “Or at least be on the other
side of the door before we make a phone call. And if we can get on the other side
of the door to call for help, we need to make the call on our way to this man, who’s
also being held.” From my stash, I pushed a picture of No Hair in front of her. She
bent over it. “His name is Jeremy Covey. He’s our boss.” I toggled a finger between
myself and Fantasy. “And he’s the head of security on
Probability
.”

She looked at No Hair’s picture at length. “The head of security is locked up?”

“Yes,” I said.

Arlinda began to see the gravity of our situation, that the problem might be bigger
than four women, a gun, martini glasses, and a cat stealing her tips. “Why is he in
the submarine?”

There it was again. “This is why we need you, Arlinda. You’re helping already. How
do you know he’s in the submarine?”

“The round porthole windows,” Jess said. “You can see them in the picture. They’re
only in the submarine.”

Well, there you go.

“We need your help getting him
out
of the submarine, Arlinda,” I said.

“You’re locked in here.” Arlinda tapped the table. “How are you going to get your
boss out of the submarine if you can’t leave your suite?”

“That’s where you come in,” I said.

She surrendered. Her chair rolled back. She was poised for flight.

“Seriously,” she said, “I can’t begin to help you. I’m in my last semester of law
school at Loyola, I serve cocktails, and I do
not
know why your boss is in the submarine. I have no idea how to get him out. Please
just give me my V2, let me go, and I’ll send someone who can help.”

I patted the table, inviting her back to our inner circle. She stayed right where
she was. Fantasy, with an exaggerated sigh, pulled the Hi-Point out and slammed it
down. Arlinda reluctantly scooted her chair up a half inch.

“It’s okay, Arlinda,” I tried to comfort her. “I promise it’s okay. Stay with me for
a few more minutes.”

She swallowed. She tucked her hands under her bare legs. She eyed what was left of
her coffee in the martini glass.

“Want me to warm you up?” Mother asked. “It’s the Starbucks.”

“Arlinda.” I continued to speak to her in calming tones and if I kept it up much longer,
I’d calm myself to sleep. I was tired, so tired. I wanted a martini glass of coffee
too, about as much as I wanted out of 704. I had a daughter to meet, twins to deliver,
and a husband I loved on the other side of the world. I guess the image of the people
I loved was swimming in my eyes when I said, “Please help us.”

She rolled back to the table.

Fantasy tucked her gun.

Mother poured another round of the Starbucks.

“Arlinda, there’s one more thing I need to talk to you about.”

She drew a deep breath, squeezed her eyes closed, and nodded.

“I need to know everything you know about the banking activities in the casino.” I
reached for the laptop and woke it up. “I think our detainment has something to do
with the casino transactions.”

Her chocolate-brown eyes popped open. “I don’t know a thing about that either! Seriously,
Mrs. Sanders, Mrs. Cole, whoever you are!” She looked around the table for help. “I
serve
drinks
!”

“You may know more than you think you do,” I said.

“I don’t. I have one guest.” She held up a single finger. “I know what he drinks.
I know what his wife drinks. I know what his bodyguard drinks. That’s truly all I
know.”

She had to know more than that.

“If you’ll let me see my V2 I can explain.”

I raised one eyebrow at Fantasy.
How much harm could it do?

She tipped her head.
I can shoot it out of her hand if I need to
.

I shrugged one shoulder.
True
.

“I get it!” Arlinda said. “If I try to make a call
I’ll
be in a lot of trouble. I get it!”

Fantasy stood. “Be right back.” She took off at a jog and was back in a flash. She
held it out of Arlinda’s reach. “Don’t get any bright ideas.”

There was a little tug of war.

“Fantasy,” I said. “Give it to her.”

“My guy’s name is Fredrick Blackwell.” Arlinda swiped her thumb across her V2, poked,
then flipped it to show me a headshot of Fredrick Blackwell. He was in his mid-fifties,
more salt than pepper hair, wide-set green eyes, bushy gray eyebrows, a thick neck,
and he was dead serious about having his picture made.

Jessica leaned in to take a peek. “Space Man.”

“Why do you only serve drinks to him, his wife, and his bodyguard?” I asked.

“There are fifty servers and fifty guests,” she said. “We’re each assigned a guest.
Fredrick Blackwell is mine.”

I held my hand out and Arlinda reluctantly surrendered her V2.

I poked around and found her handy bio of Mr. Blackwell: Fifty-four years old, Houston
resident, one wife, two grown daughters, three poodles.

“He’s in outer-space asset management and regulation,” she said.

“Come again?” Mother asked.

“He’s in charge of space,” Arlinda said.

“Well, I never,” Mother said. “What in the world?”

“He keeps satellites from crashing into each other,” Arlinda said.

“Lands alive,” Mother said. “It’s the Twilight Zone.”

Jess was busy building a V2 house with a flat V2 roof from her stack of dead V2s.

“What does a gig like that pay?” Fantasy asked.

I read from Arlinda’s V2, “His net worth is five billion.”

“Well, bully for him. Is he single?” Mother pointed to Fantasy. “She’s looking.”

“No,” Fantasy snapped. “I am not.”

“What’s his game?” I asked.

“He’s a slot player. He’s playing Knot on Your Life.”

“How’s he doing?”

Arlinda tucked a thick lock of shiny dark bob behind an ear. “He’s even,” she said.
“He spends more time swiping money in and out than playing. He puts a hundred thousand
in, loses ninety-nine of it, then wins a hundred and ten. He deposits the win and
starts over. And over. Why?”

Heavy play. Heavy transactions. “How are the other players doing?”

“Same thing,” Arlinda said. “Everyone playing is dead even. They win, they lose, they
win again. Why?”

“Even Steven,” Mother said.

“And they swipe, swipe, swipe?” I asked.

“That’s all they do,” Arlinda said. “They can only deposit a hundred thousand at a
time and they go through it in five minutes. Then they’re swiping again.”

I’d seen the Knot on Your Life slot machines six weeks ago at the Bellissimo with
No Hair. I’d played it in demo-mode—buoys danced, ship wheels twirled, and anchors,
even one on the payline, paid $50,000. Two paid $250,000. Three anchors hit the jackpot.
It was a game built for billionaires with a mouthwatering payout of $2,500,000 for
lining up three anchors, and it was a $10,000 per-spin game. Which meant, with a $100,000
deposit limit, the players were indeed swiping themselves stupid.

Why?

“Has anyone hit the jackpot?” I asked.

“No,” Arlinda said. “Noticeably not.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just,” Arlinda chose her words carefully, “no one is winning. But no one is
losing. They’re constantly checking the balances on their V2s and it’s the same all
the way around. Everyone’s even. They’re getting bored.”

And I was finally getting somewhere. My guess was they weren’t even at all. In fact,
the billionaires playing Knot on Your Life may very well be going broke. The money
trail started at the individual player’s personal banks feeding the
Probability
accounts. Wins were supposed to go the opposite direction—through the
Probability
account back to the personal in Denver. Or Dallas. Or Des Moines. But what if they
weren’t? What if the deposits on the
Probability
end were being diverted? Not going to Des Moines. Someone could be stockpiling the
Knot on Your Life deposits and I needed to find that someone fast.