Ed Gorman - Several Deaths Later

God, I can't believe it! Right next to me! Sleeping!

How it happened was we had two more murders on this boat-next time I go on a cruise ship, it's definitely going to be on a different line-and I went with Tobin (the TV critic you always said was cute even if he was short!) to check it out and then Tobin went to do something and-

Well, anyway, Kevin asked me if I wanted to go have a drink and I figured, you know, what could be the harm.

But he meant a drink in his room.

I wasn't real sure but then-you know how easily I can be influenced sometimes-he told me he'd had a small part in Saturday Night Fever and had actually gone drinking with John Travolta-and then that's what we got.

Ken and I, I mean-drunk.

And then next thing-

Well, he's sleeping right next to me.

(Back now. I had to go tinkle.) But I have to admit he's kind of weird, Kevin is. When he thought I was passed out, I heard him on the phone talking about this meeting the people on 'Celebrity Circle' were going to have-right in the middle of the night.

Then after he was gone, I got up and barfed and then I went back to bed, still trying to figure out why the 'Celebrity Circle' people would have a meeting that late and then I heard somebody come up to the door outside and I thought it might be the killer again so I scooched under the covers and waited and waited and waited and I really prayed (I was saying Hail Mary's, Aberdeen, and I'm not even Catholic) and then I heard this little swishing noise like under the door and I realized that somebody had pushed something under there and then I heard steps hurrying away down the corridor and when I finally got up to see what it was, I found this envelope and it was like weirdo-rama, Aberdeen, because inside was this really crummy Xerox copy of a picture of this little six-month-old baby. Who would send something like that.

I overheard Kevin tell Cassie in the bar that he'd gotten something yesterday, too-then this second letter. Really strange.

"What you writin', babe?"

"Oh, good morning, Kevin."

"Good morning. So what're you writing?"

"Just kind of like a note."

"A note."

"Well, more like a letter."

"A letter?"

"Yes."

"To who?"

"Aberdeen."

"Who's that?"

"This sort of heavy-set woman who has a mustache I work with at the insurance company."

He was bored instantly. "Oh."

"I was telling her about last night."

They were naked. It was the middle of the afternoon and they were still naked from the night before and needing showers and…

He reached over and kissed her right breast (the one whose nipple was about a quarter-inch longer than the other one, which really bugged her when she thought about it, and she thought about it more than you'd think) and said, "So you told her about us."

"Well."

"It's OK, babe."

"It is?"

"Sure."

He grinned. "First 'cause I'm good and I know I am and second because, well, it's just human nature to spread the news when you sleep with a celebrity."

"It is?"

He was propped up on one elbow now and deftly stroking her shoulder. With his hair mussed, and slightly in need of a shave, and enough chest hair to make a grizzly envious, he really looked hunky. Really.

"Sure. First month I was in Hollywood, I slept with the late Constance LaRue."

"Are you serious?"

"Right. I had just come out from a farm in South Dakota and I was parking cars at what's now the Harlequin Dinner Theater and she spotted me."

"You mean spotted you for a movie or something?"

He grinned again. "Or something. Connie-Constance-she liked very young, very industrious men."

"But she played a nun in that musical with…" She shook her head. Boy, wait till she told Aberdeen about what Constance LaRue was really like.

"Have you ever been on Johnny Carson?" she asked.

"Couple of times."

"He as nice as he seems?"

"He's an asshole. He should've quit ten years ago. On top. That's the only way to go out." He paused. "That's how I left my series. On top."

Without thinking, Cindy said, "But wasn't your series cane-"

And then, seeing the glare in his eyes, she said, "Oh, that's right. You quit because you wanted to do movies."

"Right."

"I saw that one too. The Fungoids. It was really great."

"Writing wasn't all it could've been but it was a good vehicle for me. It went through the roof in South America so I went down there a few years and made a bundle. That's how I bought all those doughnut franchises I was tellin' you about last night."

"Oh, right." Actually, Cindy had tried to forget about the doughnut franchises because somehow they spoiled the effect.

Actors should act and when they weren't acting they should stand at picture windows and swish brandy around in snifters and let the crest on their smoking jackets kind of gleam in the shadows.

"I'm a morning man."

"Huh?" Cindy said. Her eyes had strayed to her purse, where she'd stuck the envelope that had been pushed under his door. Ever since waking up, she'd been thinking of how she was going to tell him about the envelope.

Because it was definitely a problem.

How could she show him the envelope without explaining to him that in effect she'd been opening his mail?

"Couldn't we take a shower first?"

"Great idea. Together."

"No, I didn't mean…"

But he was kissing her, and even with morning mouth (his and hers alike) she forgot all about the envelope.

Twenty minutes later, she had at least six new things to tell Aberdeen about Kevin Anderson.

Seven if you counted what he showed her to do with the soap.

By now of course Tobin was beginning to assume the worst. Not only had Cindy McBain gone off with Kevin Anderson but she had most definitely slept with him. All morning Tobin had been able to tell himself that maybe Anderson had gotten to first or maybe second or maybe even, after plying her with drinks, third base, but no home run stuff, no out-of-the-park routines. But, as Tobin knocked on her empty room several times, and then checked various lounges and eateries, and then walked the length of several decks never so much as glimpsing her-gradually he began to understand the real implication of what was going on here. And, ridiculous as it was, he felt betrayed and jealous. She hadn't made love to Tobin because she'd been so upset with Ken Norris's death. But the blond macho TV cop was apparently another matter.

Quite another matter, Tobin thought as he made his way along the middle deck into the sunlight and in the direction of the captain's cabin. He assumed that by now Dr. Devane had sobered up and that both he and the Captain had had time to go through the dead people's effects. Perhaps they'd learned something useful about Iris Graves and the man killed with her.

A deck tennis game was in progress as Tobin reached the unfettered sunlight. He was dressed in a white shirt and white ducks and white deck shoes without socks. His red hair was brilliant in the yellow light. He smiled as passengers waved in recognition, or pointed or whispered. He owed them courtesy. God knew they'd put up with him and his pontifications on the tube (he could still recall saying, in a spontaneous if obscure burst, that John Ford was "a racist but not a malicious one," and while he knew what he'd meant, nobody else had, as evidenced by the hundreds of letters comparing him to various Nazi figures, and KKK leaders) and he should be in return, and at the least, polite.

The blue water of the pool shimmered as if it were not quite real. Around the perimeter, on the tiles, lay any number of women who could fulfill the most exotic of Tobin's fantasies.

One of them, delightfully enough, even reached out and grasped his ankle.