Ed Gorman - Several Deaths Later

"So we're going to make a deal?"

Tobin knew there was a special place in hell for people who worked with Snoop but he also knew that $10,000 was the equivalent of five appearances on "Celebrity Gardener."

"Just one thing," Tobin said.

"Way ahead of you. You want me to absolutely guarantee you your anonymity."

"Right."

"Because you'd be ashamed to be associated with a rag like ours."

"Right."

"But you'd be more than happy to take our money."

"Right."

"What a hypocrite."

"Were they working together?"

"Iris and Sanderson?"

"Yes."

"No."

"You're sure?"

"I talked to her the day she died. She said she was getting close to finishing her story but that there might be an even bigger one because of Sanderson."

"And that's all she said?"

"Right."

"So what was her story?"

"I'm not sure."

"I thought we were supposed to be cooperating."

"Actually, it's true. I was on vacation and she suddenly took off on this cruise. All she told me was that she was going to expose a very big scandal about 'Celebrity Circle.'"

"And that's all?"

"That's all. She had this thing-she hated talking about stories before they were finished. Bad luck. I know a lot of fiction writers who are like that."

"She use the word 'payday?'"

"Huh-uh."

"She say anything about any of the panelists on the show?"

"I told you, she didn't like to talk about the story."

"You want to give me your phone credit card?"

"You serious?"

"Of course I'm serious. I'm going to have to reconstruct what Iris was working on and since I'm in the middle of the Pacific, the only way I can do that is with phone calls."

"I thought you TV guys made a lot of money."

"Not when you do 'Celebrity Fitness' and stuff like that."

"You need the money, huh?"

"To be honest, yes."

Conroy said, "Then let's make it I approve the phone tab up to two grand and I pay you eight grand if the story goes in as our lead."

"I'm paying for my own phone calls?"

"Two grand's more money than you had five minutes ago, Tobin."

Tobin swore.

"And we won't use your name. I promise you."

Tobin said, "Deal."

"You're not going to the costume party?" Cassie McDowell said.

"I just haven't come up with a costume yet."

"You've only got about an hour or so before dinner." She herself was ready to go as Bo Peep, complete with bonnet and petticoats and big, clunky children's-book shoes. "You like it?"

"You going to invite me in?"

"Really, I need some positive reinforcement. Now, do you like it or not?"

"It's cute. Now, are you going to invite me in?"

He was in the corridor outside her door. Passengers got up in rigs ranging from Donald Duck to Darth Vader squeezed by. He felt foolish standing out there, as if they all knew that she wouldn't let him in.

"What do you want?"

"Just to talk."

"About what?"

Any notion he'd had that she'd been interested in him in any personal way was long gone. He stood there in jeans and his I SURVIVED THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE II T-shirt and said, "It's just a friendly visit."

"Right."

She turned just so in the light from her cabin, and he could see how quickly her face was aging and there was something sad about it, because her youth was all she'd had on "McKinley High, USA." No talent; not even animal charm. Just that cuteness, and now it was resisting the skin lotion she smelled of, now it was resisting everything she put up against the inevitable.

"We didn't kill anybody-none of us."

"I was just curious," Tobin said, "why you slapped Todd in the face last night."

"Strain, and nothing more. I'm not exactly used to people being murdered. I was just reacting to the strain was all."

"Sanderson, the private detective who was killed, had something in his belongings that made me very curious."

She looked surprised. "You have his belongings?"

"Yes."

"How'd you get them?"

"Captain Hackett."

"Isn't that cozy?" From the pocket on her dress she took a package of Salem Lights and lit one. "I really don't have time for this. We're supposed to have an open bar for the passengers up on the Promenade deck in ten minutes. I wouldn't expect you to lower yourself for anything like that." She seemed agitated- and had been ever since he mentioned Sanderson's belongings.

"I didn't know you'd won a beauty contest in Indiana."

"What?"

"A beauty contest in Indiana."

"I never have been in Indiana. I was born and raised in Culver City. The only thing I like about the Midwest is that it's so far away I never have to go there."

"You're sure?"

"You think I don't remember where I live?"

"Did you ever live in a trailer?"

"No. And I'm sick of your questions."

She looked sad then, and silly, standing there in her costume and he felt sorry for her. He wondered if she knew how sad and silly she looked. She was one of those doggedly happy people whom you secretly suspect are always miserable.

Except now she wasn't even doggedly happy. She wasn't happy at all.

"Does the word 'payday' mean anything to you?"

"No." But she said it far too quickly.

"Ken Norris used that word."

"I wouldn't know."

"When you slapped Todd you screamed at him that you were all glad Ken was dead."

"I was drunk."

"But you said it."

"So?"

"Why did you all hate him?"

"You didn't like him yourself. I saw how you watched him."

"But I didn't hate him."

She adjusted her Bo Peep bonnet. "I need to finish getting ready, Tobin. I can't say I've enjoyed this conversation."

Tobin said, "You wouldn't know where Ken Norris did his banking by any chance, would you?"

And he saw it then-panic on her face. He had no idea why the reference would have rattled her but obviously it had.

"Just get out of here," she said.

She closed the door before he could say anything else.

Ten minutes later he found the producer, Jere Farris, in one of the small lounges.

There was a piano player in a red lame dinner jacket struggling with a Nat King Cole song. It was very dark and in the darkness tiny red candles burned inside red glass globes. The seats were leather. They made a squishing sound when you sat in them.

Jere Farris looked relaxed for the first time in the two weeks Tobin had known him. It was due in large measure to the fact Jere Farris was potzed. Or at least seriously working toward such.

Farris wore a white golf shirt with a sweater tied rakishly around his neck. A massive Rolex watch rode his slender wrist, diamonds glittered in the globe light each time he took a drink. He smoked a cigarette with a ferocity that was disarming in these days of anti-smoking campaigns everywhere you looked. But even here, away from the frenzy, there was an air of petulance and prissiness about him. He was not the sort of man Tobin liked much, self-absorbed and waspish, unwilling to acknowledge in any way that you might have griefs just as he had griefs.

Tobin said, "Mind if I sit down?"

"Seems you already have."

"Mind if I order a drink?"

"As long as you don't expect me to pay for it."

Tobin said, "I'm now officially a pariah?"

Farris jabbed out his cigarette. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing."

"Trying to find out what's going on. In case you forgot, three people have been killed."

"Yes, and they've ruined the entire voyage. This was supposed to be nothing but good publicity."

Tobin thought of Captain Hackett's remark about the callousness of show-biz people. "You all wanted Ken Norris dead."

"You can prove that?"

"Not at the moment but Iris Graves, the reporter who was killed, was working on it." He paused. "I've been going through her things."