Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

Lambe

?”

The man turned. “What?” His face looked green.

Pendergast surged toward him, seized his hand. “By God, it is you! I thought I recognized you at dinner! How the hell are you?” He pumped his hand, clasping the man’s left in an enthusiastic greeting, drawing him close.

“Uh, fine.” Jason Lambe did not look at all fine. “Excuse me, but do I know you?”

“Pendergast! Aloysius Pendergast! P.S. 84, Riverdale!” Pendergast clapped an arm around the man’s shoulders, gave an affectionate squeeze while breathing heavily in his face, giving him a good dose of bourbon-breath. Lambe seemed to freeze, flinching and making an effort to disentangle himself from the obnoxious, clinging embrace.

“I don’t remember any Pendergast,” he said dubiously.

“Come on! Jason, think back to the old days! Glee club, varsity basketball!” Another squeeze, harder this time.

Lambe had had enough. With a strenuous effort, he tried to twist from the agent’s limpet-like grasp.

“Getting senile in your old age, Jason?” Pendergast gave Lambe’s upper arm an affectionate grope.

Lambe finally wrenched himself free, shook off his hand, and took a step back. “Look, Pendergast, why don’t you head back to your cabin and sober up? I don’t have the slightest idea who you are.”

“Is that any way to treat an old buddy?” Pendergast whined.

“Let me make it even plainer. Fuck off, pal.” Lambe brushed past him and headed back inside, still looking seasick.

Pendergast leaned on the rail, shaking briefly with silent mirth. After a moment he straightened up, cleared his throat, adjusted his suit and tie, wiped his hands with a silk hankie, and, with a disdainful frown, dusted himself off with a few flicks of his manicured fingers. He then took a stroll around the deck. The rolling motion of the ship was still more pronounced, and he bent into the wind as he headed forward, one hand on the rail.

He glanced overhead at the rows of balconies above him, all empty. It seemed a supreme irony: the bulk of the Britannia ’s passengers paid a hefty premium to obtain a balconied suite, but because of the extraordinary speed of the ship they were next to impossible to use.

It was the work of almost ten minutes to stroll the length of the ship. At last he paused in the relative calm of the stern. He walked to the rail and looked out over the roiling wakes: four lines of white froth subsumed into an angry ocean. The spray and spume raised by the wind and sea had started to congeal into a light mist, wrapping the ship in an eerie, damp shroud.

The ship’s horn gave a mournful blast and Pendergast turned, leaning thoughtfully against the rail. On the decks above him, twenty-seven hundred passengers were housed in luxurious surroundings. And far below his feet, in the deep spaces below the waterline, were the quarters of the sixteen hundred men and women whose job it was to cater to those passengers’ every whim.

Over four thousand people—and among them was a bizarre murderer and the mysterious object he had killed to possess.

In the shelter of the lee, Pendergast removed the list from his pocket, slipped out a fountain pen, and slowly drew a line through the name of Jason Lambe. His assessment of the man’s physical condition—which he had examined rather thoroughly under the pretext of the drunken reunion—assured him that Lambe’s sticklike arms and puny frame could not have overwhelmed Ambrose, let alone committed an act of such savage violence.

Six more to go.

The horn sounded again. As it did, Pendergast paused. Then he straightened up, listening intently. For an instant, he thought he had heard another cry, superimposed over the shriek of the horn. He waited, listening, for several minutes. But there was nothing save the rushing of the wind. Wrapping his dinner jacket tightly around himself, he made his way toward the entrance hatchway and the welcoming warmth of the ship. It was time to retire for the night.

18

ADIRTY SUN STRUGGLED UP THROUGH THE MISTS LYING ON THE eastern horizon, the watery rays of dawn flooding the ship with yellow light. First officer Gordon LeSeur stepped out of the Admiral’s Club and walked down the plushly carpeted starboard corridor of Deck 10. A few passengers were standing at the elevator bank and he greeted them good morning with a cheerful hello. They nodded back, looking a little green around the gills. LeSeur, who had not been seasick in over twenty years, tried to feel sympathetic but found it difficult. When passengers got seasick, they got cranky. And this morning they were bloody cranky.

For a brief moment, he indulged himself in nostalgia for the Royal Navy. Normally a cheerful, easygoing bloke, he was getting weary of the flashy cruise ship lifestyle—especially the antics of spoiled passengers desperate to “get their money’s worth,” indulging themselves in an orgy of eating and drinking, gambling and bonking. And these American passengers always made the same asinine comment about him looking like Paul McCartney. Wanting to know if he was related to Paul McCartney. He was no more related to McCartney than Queen Elizabeth was related to her corgis. Perhaps he should have followed his father’s footsteps into the merchant marine. Then he could be working on a nice, quiet, and blessedly passenger-free VLCC.

He smiled ruefully to himself. What was wrong with him? It was way too early in the crossing to start having thoughts like these.

As he continued sternward, he pulled a radio from its holster, set to the ship’s frequency, and pressed the transmit button. “Suite 1046, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Kemper’s Boston accent rasped over the radio. “A Mr. Evered. Gerald Evered.”

“Very well.” LeSeur returned the radio. He paused outside the door, cleared his throat, adjusted his uniform, then raised his hand and rapped once.

The door was quickly opened by a man in his late forties. Automatically, LeSeur took in the details: paunch, thinning hair, expensive suit, cowboy boots. He didn’t look seasick and he didn’t look cranky. He looked scared.

“Mr. Evered?” he asked the man. “I’m the first officer. I understand you wished to speak with someone in command?”

“Come in.” Evered ushered him inside, then closed the door. LeSeur glanced around the cabin. The closet door was open and he saw both suits and dresses hanging within. Towels were strewn across the bathroom floor, which meant housecleaning hadn’t yet cleaned the room. Strange, though—the bed was perfectly made. That meant nobody had gone to sleep the night before. A cowboy hat rested on the pillow.

“My wife is missing,” Evered said, the heavy Texas accent not surprising LeSeur.

“For how long?”

“She didn’t come back to the cabin last night. I want the ship searched.”

LeSeur quickly arranged his face into its most sympathetic expression. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Mr. Evered. We’ll do all we can. May I ask a few questions?”

Evered shook his head. “No time for questions. I’ve waited too long as it is. You need to organize a search!”

“Mr. Evered, it’ll help immeasurably if I could just gather a little information first. Please sit down.”

Evered hesitated a moment. Then he took a seat on the edge of the bed, drumming his fingers on his knees.

LeSeur sat down in a nearby armchair and removed a notebook. He had always found it helped if he took notes—it seemed to calm people. “Your wife’s name?”

“Charlene.” “When did you last see her?”

“About ten-thirty last night. Maybe eleven.”

“Where?”

“Here, in our cabin.”

“Did she go out?”

“Yes.” A hesitation.

“Where was she heading?”