Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

But the shadow was moving. The horns were blasting. The dockworkers had slipped the hawsers and retracted the boarding gantry. High overhead, hundreds of people stood at its railing or on the countless balconies, taking pictures, throwing streamers, and waving good-bye to the crowd. With a final ground-shaking blast of its horn, the Britannia slowly, ponderously, inexorably began to move away from the dock.

“Ever so sorry, guv,” the driver said. “I did my best, but—”

“Bring the bags,” Pendergast interrupted. Then he dashed off through the crush of onlookers toward a security checkpoint. As Constance watched, he stopped only long enough to flash his badge at the police, then he was off again, heading past the band and the camera crews toward a scaffold covered with bunting, on which stood a thick press of dignitaries and—Constance assumed—North Star corporate officers. Already the group was beginning to break up; men in dark suits were shaking each other’s hands and stepping down off the scaffold.

Pendergast darted through a sea of lesser functionaries that surrounded the scaffold and singled out one man standing at its center: a portly gentleman with an ebony walking stick and a white carnation on his dove-gray vest. He was being congratulated by those around him, and he was clearly surprised and taken aback when Pendergast inserted himself into the little group, uninvited. The man listened to Pendergast for a moment, a mixture of impatience and irritation on his face. Then, abruptly, he frowned and began to shake his head furiously. When Pendergast continued to talk urgently, the man drew himself up and began to gesticulate, poking his finger first at the ship, then at Pendergast, his face flushing a deep red. Security personnel began to crowd around them and they were lost from sight.

Constance waited by the taxi, the driver at her side. He had not bothered to retrieve the luggage, and she was not surprised; the huge bulk of the Britannia was still gliding along the dock, moving slowly but picking up speed. There would be no more stops until it reached New York after a crossing of seven days and six nights.

As she watched, the ship’s horn let out another blast. Abruptly, large jets of water began to boil around the bows. Constance frowned: it almost seemed as if the vessel was slowing down. She glanced back in Pendergast’s direction. He was visible again now, standing beside the man with the carnation, who was talking into a cell phone. The man’s face had gone from red to purple.

Constance returned her attention to the ship. It was no illusion: the ship’s bow thrusters had reversed, and the Britannia was creeping backward toward the dock. The earsplitting cheering around her seemed to falter as the crowds looked on with increasing perplexity.

“Blimey,” the driver muttered. Then, walking around to the rear of the taxi, he opened the boot and began to pull out their baggage.

Pendergast gestured to Constance, indicating that she should meet him at the security checkpoint. She made her way through the buzzing crowds, the driver at her heels. On the dock itself, workers were hastily extending the lower boarding gantry again. The band faltered, then gamely started up again.

The horn gave yet another blast as the gangway was maneuvered into position against the ship’s black flanks. Pendergast ushered her through the checkpoint and together they walked quickly down the dock.

“No need to make haste, Constance,” he said, taking her arm lightly and slowing her down to a leisurely stroll. “We might as well enjoy the moment—of keeping the world’s largest ocean liner waiting, that is—not to mention its more than four thousand passengers and crew.”

“How did you manage it?” she asked as they stepped onto the gantry.

“Mr. Elliott, principal director of the North Star Line, is a warm acquaintance of mine.”

“He is?” she asked dubiously.

“Well, even if he wasn’t ten minutes ago, he certainly is now. The gentleman and I are recently acquainted, and he is warm now—

very

warm.”

“But delaying departure? Getting the ship to return to the dock?”

“When I explained just how much it would be to his advantage to accommodate us—and how much to his personal disadvantage not to—Mr. Elliott was most eager to be of assistance.” Pendergast glanced up at the ship, then smiled once again. “You know, Constance, under the circumstances I think I’m going to find this voyage tolerable—perhaps even agreeable.”

10

FOR ROGER MAYLES, CRUISE DIRECTOR OF THE BRITANNIA , ONE OF THE earliest and most important decisions of the voyage had been at which table to dine on First Night. It was always a prickly question, very prickly, made all the more so by the fact that this was First Night on the maiden voyage of the world’s largest ocean liner.

A difficult question indeed.

As cruise director, his job was not only to know the names and needs of all the passengers, but to mingle with them as well. At all times. If he disappeared during dinner, it would send a message to them that he didn’t love them, that his was just a job.

It wasn’t just a job.

But then, what do you do with a passenger list that is almost three thousand names long, spread over eight dining rooms and three seatings?

Mayles had fussed and fussed. First he had decided on the restaurant: it would be Oscar’s, the movie-themed dining room. It was a spectacular art deco room, one wall a single curtain of Venetian cut crystal, with a waterfall behind, the whole thing backlit. The whisper of water was designed to raise the ambient white noise, which had the curious effect of lowering the apparent volume of sound. Two other walls were of real gold leaf, and the final one was of glass, looking out into the darkness of the ocean. It wasn’t the biggest restaurant on the ship—that was the King’s Arms, with its three opulent levels—but it had the smartest decor.

Yes, Oscar’s it would be. Second seating, naturally. The first seaters were to be avoided at all costs; they were generally cretins who, no matter how rich they were, had never managed to shed the barbaric habit of eating before seven.

Then came the question of the table itself. It would, of course, be one of the “formal” tables—the large ones where guests could, on request, still observe the old-fashioned tradition of assigned seating, in which they would be mingled with strangers, as in the glory days of ocean liners. Formal dress, of course. To most, this meant black tie. But Mayles was very fussy about such things and he always dressed in a white dinner jacket.

Next, he’d had to choose the guests at his table. Roger Mayles was particular and he had many private, admittedly vicious prejudices to satisfy. His list of guests to avoid was a long one: topping it were CEOs, anyone involved in the stock markets, Texans, fat people, dentists, and surgeons. His preferred list included actresses, titled nobility, heiresses, television talk show hosts, airline stewards, mobsters, and what he called “mysteries”—people who defied placing—as long as they were intriguing, very rich, and X-class.

After hours of poring over the guest lists he had come up with what he considered to be a brilliant party for First Night. He would put together tables for himself every night of the voyage, of course, but this one was special. This would be a dinner to remember. It was certain to prove an excellent diversion. And Mayles was always in need of diversion at sea, because—and this was his biggest secret among many—he had never learned to swim and was deathly afraid of the open ocean.

And so it was with great anticipation and not a little trepidation that he arrived at the gold-leafed entrance to Oscar’s, dressed in a thousand-dollar Hickey Freeman dinner jacket purchased especially for the voyage. He paused at the door, letting all eyes fall on his impeccably tailored form. He beamed a gracious smile at the room and made his way to the head formal table.