Ed Gorman - Several Deaths Later

Tobin ducked down and made an elaborate pretense of tying his penny loafer. At least he hoped that people had the impression he was tying his shoe. What he was really doing, of course, was pouring pure silver vodka from his pure silver flask-which was mounted by Velcro backing to his sock-into his stupid pink-yellow fruit drink.

As he poured, he took the opportunity to admire Cassie McDowell's perfect ankles.

Then he sat back up and began sipping with quiet satisfaction.

He had just sort of wiggled himself back into position when he noticed the makeup woman, a very shy, graceful, twentyish girl named Joanna Howard, staring at him. If Tobin were ever asked to cast a film about the Amish, he'd choose her-she had that kind of severe prettiness that sometimes is far more interesting than any other sort, perhaps because it's touched with mystery. Joanna rarely spoke but only nodded, rarely smiled but only sort of inclined her head when she realized that she was supposed to laugh but could not, apparently, find the appropriate sound. Then there were her clothes. Though the cruise was "tropical," she always wore heavy white silk blouses that came all the way down to her wrists and very heavy designer jeans and heavy woolen argyle socks and white tennis shoes of the Keds variety. Her blue gaze fascinated him, and he wondered now how long she'd been standing there and if she'd guessed what he'd just done.

"Did you see that?"

She looked puzzled.

"No, I guess you didn't."

"Your nose," she said.

"My nose?"

"Needs powder."

"Oh."

"Shiny."

"Ah."

So she did his nose to reduce the glare and then she did his cheeks and jaw again, apparently just as a precaution.

As she worked, he said, "Do you ever relax?" He saw her cheeks color.

"I didn't mean to embarrass you, Joanna. And I wasn't flirting." You had to treat her like a very skittish animal. "I just mean, are you having fun on the trip?"

She nodded. "Sure."

"Why don't I ever see you in any of the lounges?"

"Oh. This allergy, I guess."

"Allergy."

"To alcohol."

"Oh."

"But I brought some good books."

"Oh."

For the first time ever, he saw her smile. "Books are better than people sometimes."

"True enough."

"I'm reading Thomas Wolfe."

And she was of course at just the right age for Wolfe. Only later on-after your first kid, your first firing, and the death of a parent-did you realize that Wolfe's concerns were those of a very talented but very self-consumed fourteen-year-old.

"You don't like him?"

"Why do you say that?" Tobin asked.

"You just made a face."

"Oh. Well, I'd have to say he's not my favorite."

"Who's your favorite?"

"Oh, gosh."

"I guess that was a kind of stupid question, huh?"

Seeing that he'd embarrassed her, he put a hand out to touch her forearm, but before his fingers could quite reach her, she jerked her arm away.

He said, "Graham Greene."

"What?"

She was still looking upset over the fact that he'd tried to touch her.

"If you pressed me about my very favorite writer," Tobin said, "I'd have to say Graham Greene." He was staring at the space where her arm had been. The arm she wouldn't let him touch. "I… I'm sorry, Joanna. I didn't mean anything by that."

Half-whispering, she said, "I know." Then, "Well, I'd better get back to Fritz and see if he needs help." Fritz was the head makeup person. Then she paused and seemed to gather her strength and said, "You know what?"

"What?"

"I don't like Graham Greene any better than you like Thomas Wolfe."

He sensed how heroic it was for a girl so shy to say something like this and he broke into an exultant grin, happy for her.

His hand started out automatically to touch her-he was that sort, a toucher, which some people liked and some definitely did not-but she was gone before he could commit another mistake.

He hoisted his fruit drink and looked around him, at the oval of audience in front, at the scurrying technicians all about.

Marty was just now getting the audience to really howl.

Jere Farris-dashing about, sweaty and hysterical-clapped his hands at everybody in his way, as if he were a farmer scattering chickens.

Plump people from Cleveland whistled as the ersatz hula girls entered stage right.

Two cameramen knocked over a light as they pulled their camera to the right. The sound was sharp as a gunshot. Some laughed, some screamed.

The show itself was nothing much at all.

Inside a semicircle of celebrities (technically, the thing should have been called "Celebrity Semicircle") sat three contestants, each of whom was handed a card with one-half of an answer (such as "E ="), and they then had two chances to choose the celebrity with the other half of the answer ("D Cup" would be a typical "naughty" celebrity response, sure to drive Dubuque crazy).

The contestants, of course, had all been prescreened to prove that they were pneumatic grinners-laughers-jumpers-up-and-down, that subspecies of humanity endemic to TV shows where ordinary folks can win cold Yankee cash.

The surprise of the day-and a long, grinding day it was-was Todd Ames's smooth performance as host. With his theatrically handsome features, his sleek gray hair, his almost courtly manner and his apparently genuine intelligence, he was in fact much better than the somewhat combative Ken Norris had been. Norris, famous for his occasionally too-tart responses, had always conveyed a kind of Malibu contempt for the masses, as if he might catch something from standing next to them. But Ames showed evidence of the sort of vaguely condescending paternalism that Americans love so much in their ministers, politicians, and doctors.

Halfway through the second show, Tobin began to wonder if, in fact, Ames had been rehearsing for just this moment-he seemed so composed, so ready for the task you had the eerie feeling that…

But would one actor kill another merely to ascend to the star position of the most popular game show in TV syndication?

Are you crazy?

Halfway through the third segment a chopper appeared against the blue sky and hovered above the opposite end of the gigantic cruise ship.

A rope mechanism was lowered and a pulley system put into action. A long, lumpy black bag was borne upward into the chopper's belly as the air was torn furiously by the whirling blades and the white-uniformed stewards held their hats in place from the wind.

Do not ask for whom the pulley pulls.

The cruise ship was off-loading the body of former "High Rise" star and TV game-show host Ken Norris.

It would taint cruise ship fun to have a rotting stiff down in the meat lockers. Your steak just wouldn't taste the same.

After the taping, Tobin went back to his cabin, took a shower, changed into a plain blue button-down shirt, stuck a cigarillo in his teeth, and then went in search of the captain's number-one suspect, Cindy McBain.

At this time of day, the ship was alive with a dizzying variety of activity. People jogged, participated in aerobics classes, played deck games, sat around one of the three swimming pools, sat in lounges listening to puppy-eager performers, did really dumb numbers like trying to shimmy underneath limbo poles while friends sat around and drunkenly laughed, and generally milled about on the various decks trying to have the sort of fun the brochure not only suggested but vaguely demanded you have.

He went past a barber shop, a beauty parlor, a hospital, a foursome of elevators; he went past a golf-driving range, a trapshooting area, a library, a discotheque. Finally, he tried the casino, where the noise and energy of gambling were almost vulgar on the otherwise lazy air, and there he found her.