Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

She traced a circuitous path through the narrow, sweat-fragrant corridors, Constance close behind. The crew dining area was located amidships, a large, low-ceilinged room. Crew members, all in uniform, sat at long cafeteria-style tables, heads bent over their plates. As they took their places in the buffet line, Constance looked around, shocked at the plainness of the room—so very different from the opulent dining rooms and grand salons the passengers enjoyed.

“It’s so quiet,” she said. “Why aren’t people talking?”

“Everyone tired. Also, everyone upset about Juanita. Maid who went crazy.”

“Crazy? What happened?”

She shook her head. “Is not uncommon, except it usually happen at end of long tour. Juanita go crazy . . . rip out own eyes.”

“Good God. Did you know her?”

“A little.”

“Did she seem to have any problems?”

“We all of us have problems,” Marya said, quite seriously. “Otherwise not take this job.”

They made their lunch choices from an unappetizing variety—fatty slices of boiled corned beef, waterlogged cabbage, mushy rice, gluey shepherd’s pie, anemic-looking squares of yellow sheet cake—and Marya led the way to a nearby table, where two of her bunkmates picked listlessly at their plates. Marya made the introductions: a young, dark-haired Greek woman named Nika, and Lourdes, a middle-aged Filipina.

“I have not seen you before,” Nika said in a thick accent.

“I’m assigned to cabins on Deck 8,” Constance replied, careful to add a German accent of her own.

The woman nodded. “You must be careful. This isn’t your mess. Don’t let her see you.” She nodded toward a short, hirsute, thickset woman with frizzy bottle-blonde hair, standing in a far corner and surveying the room with a scowl.

The women made small talk in a strange mixture of languages with a lot of English words thrown in, apparently the lingua franca of the Britannia ’s service decks. Most of it focused on the maid who had gone crazy and mutilated herself.

“Where is she now?” Constance asked. “Did they medevac her off the ship?”

“Too far from land for a helicopter,” said Nika. “They lock her in infirmary. And now I have to do half her rooms.” She scowled. “Juanita, I knew she was heading for trouble. She is always talking about what she see in the passengers’ rooms, poking her nose where it not belong. A good maid sees nothing, remembers nothing, just does her job and keeps her mouth shut.”

Constance wondered if Nika ever took her own advice on the latter point.

Nika went on. “Yesterday, how she talk at lunch! All about that stateroom with the leather straps on bed and vibrator in drawer. What is she doing looking in drawer? Curiosity killed the cat. And now I have to clean half her rooms. This Jonah ship.”

Her mouth set firmly into an expression of disapproval and she sat back and crossed her arms, point made.

There were murmurs and nods of agreement.

Nika, encouraged, uncrossed her arms and opened her mouth again. “Passenger disappear too on ship. You hear that? Maybe she is a jumper. This Jonah ship, I tell you!”

Constance spoke quickly to stem the flow of words. “Marya tells me you work in the larger cabins,” she said. “You’re lucky—I just have the standard suites.”

“Lucky?” Nika looked at her incredulously. “For me is twice as much work.”

“But the tips are better, right?”

Nika scoffed. “The rich ones give you smallest tips of all. They always complain, want everything just so. That ryparóç in the triplex, he make me come back three times today to remake his bed.”

This was a piece of luck. One of the people on Pendergast’s list—Scott Blackburn, the dot-com billionaire—had taken one of only two triplex suites. “Do you mean Mr. Blackburn?” she asked.

Nika shook her head. “No. Blackburn even worse! Has own maid, she get linens herself. Maid treat me like dirt, like I

her

maid. I have to take that triplex also, thanks to Juanita.”

“He brought his own maid along?” Constance asked. “Why?”

“He bring

everything

along! Own bed, own rugs, own statues, own paintings, own piano even.” Nika shook her head. “Bah! Ugly things, too: ugly and ryparóç.”

“I’m sorry?” Constance feigned ignorance of the word.

“Rich people crazy.” Nika cursed again in Greek.

“How about his friend, Terrence Calderón, next door?”

“Him! He okay. Give me okay tip.”

“You clean his stateroom, as well? Did he bring his own things?”

She nodded. “Some. Lot of antiques. French. Very nice.”

“The richer they are, the worse they are,” said Lourdes. She spoke excellent English with only a faint accent. “Last night, I was in the suite of—”

“Hey!” a voice boomed right behind them. Constance turned to see the supervisor standing behind her, hands on copious hips, glaring.

“On your feet!” the woman said.

“Are you speaking to me?” Constance replied.

“I said, on your

feet

!”

Calmly, Constance rose. “I haven’t seen you before,” the woman said in a surly tone. “What’s your name?”

“Rülke,” Constance said. “Leni Rülke.”

“What’s your station?”

“The Deck 8 cabins.”

A look of bitter triumph came over the woman’s fat features. “I thought as much. You know better than to eat here. Get back down to the Deck D cafeteria where you belong.”

“What’s the difference?” Constance asked in a mild tone. “The food’s no better here.”

Disbelief took the place of triumph on the supervisor’s face. “Why, you impudent bitch—” And she slapped Constance hard across her right cheek.

Constance had never in her life been slapped before. She stiffened for a moment. Then she took an instinctive step forward, hand closing tightly over her fork. Something in her movement made the supervisor’s eyes widen. The woman stepped back.

Slowly, Constance laid the fork back on the table. She thought of Marya and the pledge of secrecy she owed her. She glanced down. Marya was staring at them, her face white. The other two women were looking studiously at their plates.

Around them, the low murmur of apathetic conversation, which had stopped for the altercation, resumed. She looked back at the supervisor, committing her face to memory. Then—cheek burning—she stepped away from the table and left the cafeteria.

21

FIRST OFFICER GORDON LESEUR FELT A RISING SENSE OF CONCERN as he stepped into Kemper’s monastic office. The missing passenger had not shown up, and the husband had demanded to meet with all the senior officers. Commodore Cutter had been cloistered in his cabin for the last eight hours, in one of his black moods, and LeSeur wasn’t about to disturb him for Evered or anybody else. Instead, he’d assigned the watch to the second officer and rounded up the staff captain, Carol Mason, for the meeting.

Evered was pacing back and forth in the cramped confines, his face red, his voice shaking. He looked like he was teetering on the brink of hysteria. “It’s past four in the afternoon,” he was saying to Kemper. “It’s been eight goddamn hours since I alerted you to my wife’s disappearance. ”

“Mr. Evered,” Kemper, the chief of security, began. “It’s a big ship, there’s a lot of places she could be—”

“That’s what you all said before,” Evered said, his voice rising. “ She’s not back yet. I heard the PA announcements like everyone else, I saw the little picture you posted on the TVs. This isn’t like her, she would never stay away this long without contacting me. I want this ship searched!”