1 Shore Excursion (31 page)

I
started on the top of the ship at the Sunset Lounge where Gertrude had reported last seeing Muriel.

Mario was mopping the dance floor.

“Yeah, she was here earlier, but she’s gone now. You’ll find her soon
, I bet
.
She was hitting
the bottle
pretty hard.
I don’t think she could make it too far on her own.”

I got pretty much the same answer from workers
and remaining passengers
in all the lounges, restrooms and public areas on the top three decks.

Deck
Eight
was all suites, but none of the cabin stewards I talked to there had seen her.
She could have hidden in
an empty
state
room, I thought, but not for long, because the staff was
all over the place,
preparing th
e ship
to
depart for England.
I asked everyone I saw to page me if they spotted her.

Because we were in port, the shops and casino on Deck
Seven
were closed, but on the Promenade Deck, I got lucky.
I ran into Dr. Sledge.
Gladys had alerted him, and he was looking for her, too.

“Muriel has been quite a challenge for us all, hasn’t she, Miss Marsh?
Let’s divide
and conquer
, shall we?
You search the port side and I’ll take the starboard.”

He looked up and down the corridor and then lowered his voice.
“I must say that I will be very glad to see Muriel Murphy headed home, and I am sure you will as well.
I have advised both Muriel and her parents of her need for professional help.
This spotty guard dog approach that her parents have been taking doesn’t work very well, what?”

“It sure doesn’t, Dr. Sledge,” I said.

And neither do
you
, I thought, considering his inept, unprofessional, and spineless performance in all that had happened on this voyage.

Where d
id
they get these people?

I
found
Muriel
huddled in a corner of the library, which should have been
closed and
locked
at that
hour
, but wasn’t.

She was sipping
vodka
out of
a pint in her
purse and singing
softly, curled up in a leather chair like a little child,
with magazines
and candy wrappers
scattered all around her on the floor.
She was hammered.

“Muriel! There you are!
I’ve been looking all over for you.
Let’s go,
dear
. I
t’s time to leave the ship.
The bus has already left.”

“Do we haaaaaaaaave to
go,
Mish
Marsh?
I loooove it here.
I don’ wanna go home.”

She peered at me over her glasses, trying to focus.
Then she tried to stand, wobbled for a moment and crashed ba
ck down into the chair
.
She obviously couldn’t walk by herself
,
and she was
no
lightweight.

Great, just great.
Now I’ve got to haul her out of that chair, get her off the ship by myself, pour her into a cab, and sober her up enough to be allowed onto the plane
.

They don’t pay me enough. They don’t pay me enough.
They don’t pay me enough
.
My new mantra.

I
thought about going for assistance
, but all the ship’s crew was really busy
,
and besides that, if I left her to get help, she might
stumble
away and hide again.
I was through playing that game
.

“Muriel.
Give me your hand.
I’m going to help you up
,
and then we’re going to take the elevator down to
B deck and leave the ship.
O
kay
?
A
cab will take us to th
e airport to meet the others
.
Wouldn’t you like that?
The bars on the ship are all closed now
, Muriel.
The cruise is over
.
The airport is really nice
;
you’ll like
it
.
Now just hold on to me, th
at’s it, and try to stand.
That’s great.
Good girl.
Steady now.
Hold onto me. Now let’s try to walk.
”

I put my arm around her and heaved her up out of the chair.

They don’t teach you this stuff in travel agent school
,
but they should.
Muriel was certainly not the first problem drinker I had dealt
with
on tour. Drunks are a
n occupational
hazard on package tours.

We stumbled toward the glass elevator.
I held Muriel
up against the wall while I pushed the down button, talking to her all the time.

When the doors opened, I
muscled her into the elevator,
propped
her
in the corner against the back wall
,
and punched the B Deck button.
She had stopped
mumbling
and was humming
instead, the same snatch of tune over and over
and over
.

Itchy’s really got to up my pay after all this
, I thought
.

The elevator started down.

Through the glass
wall
I could see the taxi line.
Most of them had left, but a few remained.
The suitcases that had been lined up outside the customs shed were almost gone.
The elevator stopped on Continental Deck, but no one was there waiting.

The doors closed again and we continue
d downward.
I waved at
Captain Vargos, who was standing
, tall and handsome,
at the purser’s desk.
When he saw me waving he didn’t wave back, but instead said something to the purser
and
point
ed
at me
; then he
headed rapidly toward the stairs without
another glance in my direction
.

What’s wrong with him?
I
wondered
.
I
thought we were
okay
no
w
.
More than
okay.
I
n fact,
last night was pretty great
.

“Whee!”
Muriel said
, her green-grape eyes glowing
as we whooshed through the atrium of the main lobby then into the enclosed shaft that passed through the lower passenger decks.

While
Muriel hummed behind me
,
I watched the
lighted
numbers
change
above the door.
We stopped on B Deck, where the entrance to the main gangway was located.

The doors were opening for B Deck when the cord went around my neck.

Somehow
, somehow
I managed to get
a few
fingers under
that
cord
bare
seconds
before I was down on the floor, fighting for my life.

Muriel shouted out that maniacal cackle that had haunted my days and nights since my macabre performance in the Broadway Showroom.
She pulled the cord tighter against my fingers, around my neck.

Muriel
was incredibly strong.
Incredibly sober.
And mad
,
c
ompletely mad.

“Don’t struggle against me, Sidney, don’t fight me.
It won’t help.
I’m much stronger that you, you know. Just take your punishment. You can’t win.
There now, just relax,
you little trollop,
and it will soon be all over.
Relax!
”

I clawed against the cord as hard as I could,
trying
to bite her, kick her, buck her off my back, but it was no use.
She not only outweighed me, she was so strong, so incredibly strong.
I couldn’t take my hands away from
under
the cord to try to hit her.
I couldn’t risk it.

“It was me,
Sidney
.”
She
giggled
in my ear.
“
Did you know, did you know
, did you know
?
It was me all along.
All along. All along.
And you never guessed, did you
, did you, did you?
No, no, no.
No one suspected. No one guessed. H
ee hee
! Poor drunk
fat
Muriel
punished
them all.
One by one.
By one. By one. Snippy Ruth, sleeping with her nasty Mr. Bostick, and silly Sylvia and you!
Harlots
,
both of you, screwing, screwing, screwing my beautiful
Fernando
.
Don’t say you didn’t.
I know you did.
Because h
e didn’t want me, you know.
He said so.
He laughed at poor Muriel, all because he only wanted you. He could only see you.
But when you are gone
;
then he
will
want Muriel. Yes, yes, yes.
Beautiful, beautiful Muriel. And if he doesn’t,
why
then Muriel will punish him too, dear, when she
catches
him
.
Y
es, she will.
Muriel will punish him, too.”

She
had me
pinned face
down on the floor
of the elevator
,
slowly
twisting the cord tighter against my fingers and neck,
her horrible, hateful
voice whispering in my ear.

I kicked the wall of the elevator,
over and over
, kicked it, trying to
buck her off, trying to
turn over, but it did no good. She paid no attention, just kept up the relentless pressure on my neck.

I fought her as hard as I could for as long as I could, but in the end, her
massive
weight and manic strength in the enclosed space were too much for me.

I couldn’t breathe.
She sat on the middle of my back, crushing me against the floor, riding me into oblivion.
I was weaker now,
and weaker still,
unable to push her off my back,
unable to breathe,
and the cord was tightening.
I could no longer feel my fingers.
She was
huge, she was
relentless
,
and her strength was amazing.

I could barely hear her hideous voice.
I was lo
sing consciousn
ess, no longer able to fight, going down, down, down into darkness.

This is it
, I thought at the last,
this is really it. What a stinking way to go
.

W
hen I heard the sho
uts I thought it was the angels.

They shout when you get to heaven, right?
And they were all dressed in white.

The biggest angel picked m
e up in his arms and rocked me gently, like a child,
like a baby,
kissing my hair,
saying my name over and over.
“Sidney.
Sidney,
darling.
Oh, my
darling
Sidney.
Open your eyes, Sidney.
Wake up
,
my
dearest, my love
. It’s all over now, Sidney
.
You a
re safe, Sidney
, my precious girl
.
You’re safe.”

The big angel turned out to be Captain Vargos, of course, in his whites, and the other angels were the
security guards
who had pulled Muriel off of me right before I checked out for good.

Vargos knew that the final shore excursion bus had already left. After
he
saw us pass through the atrium in the elevator,
he
had
realized
from the wild look on Muriel’s face
that something must be terribly wrong
. That’s why
he started down the stairs to help me with her.
Then
the
security
guards heard the sound of my kicks in the elevator.

I didn’t make the flight home with the High Steppers.
Jay got them all back safely, except, of course, for the ones who were already dead o
r
in jail.

I
t turned out that
there
truly
was no Mrs. Vargos or any little Vargoses
waiting back in Athens
.
Zoe
was definitely
wrong about that
.
And I finally met that
beautiful blonde
I thought was my big competition. She is
the Captain’s
niece
, Helen,
who is
completing an
Empress Line
internship
in the
purser’s
office
.

I sailed back to England, without the High Steppers, on the
Rapture of the Deep
,
recuperating
in the big bed in the captain’s cabin.

“But will you still have a job if you go back to New York?” he asked, nuzzling my shoulder, kissing the bruises that, after
a few
days, were beginning to fade from my neck.

“
I don’t know,
”
I said, turning over, “and right now, I just really don’t care.”

I guess now you’re waiting for me to tell you all about the big wedding on the ship, with the ship’s horn blasting, and the pastry chef’s seven tier cake, and my designer gown, and all the white doves and balloons being released from the Sun Deck, but I can’t, because it didn’t happen that way.

Instead, when we reached Harwich, Devon
, the High Steppers’ faithful driver,
picked me up
at
the dock to take me back to Heathrow for my flight home to New York.

It wasn’t that things didn’t work out for
Stephanos
Vargos
and me. Things are great.
He is a very sweet man,
a pretty special guy
.
It’s just that his job comes first, and
I don’t think any
woman can ever compete
with it, whether he realizes it or not
.
He said
so
himself; his first love is the sea.
But we’ll be together
again soon when he comes to New York
for a visit
,
and maybe, just maybe, I’ll
change my mind
about learning to make span
a
kopeta.
Can’t you just see me, Jay and
Stephanos
drinking ouzo and
breaking plates at the wedding?
Oom-pah!

But even if I never see
my Captain
again
,
I will have a smile on my face for a very long time.

It was
only
that
, leaving the North Sea and nearing England
,
standing
on the flying bridge
in the mist, I finally thought it all through and
realized that I c
ould
n’t picture myself
bouncing babies and
making baklava in A
thens while
Stephanos
sails around the world without me.

At the dock, Devon put my bags in the car and then insisted over my protests that I ride in the back seat. Devon is a very proper guy.

As
we
rolled away from the pier with
Captain
Stephanos
Vargos
—
his white uniform silhouetted
against the sky
—
watching us from th
at
flying bridge
,
it was with more than a little regret that I watched the twin stacks of the
Rapture of
the
Deep grow smaller and smaller, then finally disappear from view in the rear window.

Devon accelerated onto the A10.

“Sidney?”
Devon said.

“Yes, Devon?”

“Remember the red bag?”

D
o
I?
I thought,
How could I possibly forget it?
But
what
I said
was
, “Yes, Devon, yes, I do.”

“And remember those two cheery chaps who stopped to help us with the bus accident?”

I nodded.
His warm, brown eyes watched me in the mirror.

“Well, it turns out that they weren’t such good lads, after all. I picked them out of a lineup at the Yard yesterday morning. There was a third chap, too, the driver of the lorry that clipped us.
The inspector explained
that bit
to me.”

He paused for a moment, as he passed a large truck, then continued. “
The lads we thought were our friends
after the accident
were
actually
the ones who switched Miss Shadrach’s red bag
in New York
for the one with all the
treasure
.
One of them tried to grab it
back at
Heathrow, but she snatched it away from him, so they followed us on the road to have another go.
A
fter the first chap hit us and drove away, the other two stopped and pretended to help. Whi
le one of them was talking to Jay
, the other one was
trying to steal the bag from the bus, but he couldn’t because I was right there.
He fooled me.
I thought the bugger
was
being helpful, checking the boot for damage.
Miss Shadrach must have been on to them.
I think she saw him out the wi
ndow, mucking about with the luggage
. H
e saw her spot him, and that did it for her, what?”

“No, Devon, I don’t think so. Those men didn’t kill Ruth. Muriel Murphy did. Muriel killed Ruth
, Al, and Sylvia
out of jealousy or for her own strange reasons.
That it was Ruth’s bag that was involved with the smuggling ring
had nothing to do with Muriel or
any of
the
High Steppers’
murder
s
.
Th
e fact
that
the gang picked Ruth’s bag instead of one of the others
was
completely c
oincidental.
One
of the guys who was following us
in New York
before the cruise
saw her buy that bag at Macy’s
;
so
he went back
,
bought one just like it
and loaded it up with all the
goodies
.
Then they followed us to make the switch.
We were all
apparently leading a parade around New York without knowing it.
A
ny one of the High Steppers’ bags would have done, not just Ruth’s.
All the gang really
needed
was
a bag that
might
go
through customs
without suspicion.
A group like ours was perfect
.
The whole scheme w
as working pre
tty well for them
,
until
Muriel came along.
”

“She is mad, then, Muriel, is she?”
he said.

“As a hatter.”

“Right-o
,
” he said.
“
So a
re you happy to
be headed home, Sidney, with
everything all
finally
solved?
I mean
the mystery and everything.”

“Yes, Devon, I am. I
certainly am.”

“Well,” he smiled, “now that this trip is all wrapped up, might I just mention that Diana rang me this morning and said to tell you that she hopes you enjoyed your little holiday, and that she has you booked to go out again on Sunday?”

I won’t tell you what I said
in reply
.

Not you, or my grandmother, and especially not my Aunt Min
nie.