Several Deaths Later (16 page)

    "The night he was killed you were-where?" He sipped his drink. "You think you're a coy one, don't you, Tobin?"

    "Meaning?"

    "Meaning I know you and Joanna have discussed me. Joanna told me." He paused. "Joanna and I were together in her cabin."

    "She'll swear to that?"

    A tiny smile came on to his face. "She'll swear to anything I ask her to. She happens to love me."

    He sounded like the second lead in a bad movie of a D. H. Lawrence book.

    "You've got a nice wife, Farris. You should remember that."

    "Next time I need advice about my love life, I'll be sure to write you a letter." He grinned with a great deal of malice. "I mean, you're so successful with women. You've been chasing Cindy McBain-and Kevin Anderson catches her."

    He continued to grin as Tobin stood up, nodded, and walked away.

    For all the unpleasantness, Tobin had achieved his purpose.

    He'd now told two members of the "Celebrity Circle" group that the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson could be found in his cabin. They would inevitably tell all the others.

    Now all Tobin had to do was wait and see who showed up to steal the stuff.

    

    

    

    He'd learned years ago to attend all costume parties as the Burglar.

    Oh, people complained of course, and said he was a spoilsport and never got in the fun of anything. And that was, he supposed, true enough, having spent his earlier years as a rather public drunkard (lots of fistfights, most of which he lost) and would-be provocateur (years of boring people to death with his attacks on Godard, whom, he'd discovered one sober day, not many people liked much anyway). People now had the well-deserved impression that he could be at least a bit of a jerk about anything social, like a little boy who didn't want to get dressed up for his cousin's birthday party.

    So the Burglar was perfect because while all these other people were making utter fools of themselves gotten up as Scaramouche and Donald Duck and Marie Antoinette, Tobin simply wore whatever sport-coat felt comfortable, slacks, a shirt and tie, and the simple Burglar mask-and
voila!
-he was instantly transformed into the perfect costume party attendee.

    

    

    "That's really kind of a mean thing to do," Cindy McBain said when he stopped by her cabin to pick her up. She wore a black-and-white nun's habit, the penguin-type, right down to the thunderous black oxfords. She was excitingly erotic, making Tobin wonder if he'd had a long-repressed desire to hump the nuns of his schoolboy youth. She'd worked wonders with makeup on her black eye. "Why is it mean?"

    "Because you're supposed to get in the spirit of the thing and all that and you've just got that crummy little mask on."

    "Crummy little mask?"

    "That really sucks, Tobin," Cindy said.

    "Talk about not getting in the spirit," he said, as she bent over and locked the door of her cabin.

    She stood up straight. "You're the one who's not in the spirit. I'm
right
in the spirit."

    "You think real nuns use the word 'sucks'?"

    

    

    Everybody was drunk.

    Not just intoxicated, not just tipsy, not just sauced but rather glass-smashing, ass-pinching, bellow-resounding drunk.

    And Tobin felt immediately caught up in it-the noise, the sweat, the confusion, the white flash of breast, the nylon flash of thigh-he wished he could abstract it all into one gigantic swimming pool and dive into the center of it.

    The dinner and party spilled out of the restaurant and all over the deck. Waiters and stewards and waitresses toadied and simpered and cursed; insurance salesmen giggled. The deck was lined with tables, overwhelmed with food-steak and fish and poultry of every kind-and even the band inside onstage seemed caught up in the moment and actually managed to stay on key and hold their Vegas horseshit ("You know, there are a few cynics who think our Tribute to America segment isn't sincere, but let's have a round of applause to show 'em what we really think of our country, all right?") to a minimum.

    Cindy, whose costume was particularly teasing to those men who'd been fortunate enough to catch her sunbathing, clutched his arm and said, "Can we eat with… them?"

    "Them?"'

    "You know."

    "Ah. Them.' Celebrities."

    "It'd be nice. It really would."

    "Even though at least one of 'them' is a killer."

    "But eating with regular people'll be just… dull."

    "And"-he smiled-"eating with regular people doesn't make for very exciting letters to Aberdeen."

    "Not unless somebody choked on his food or something."

    So they went inside and took their rightful place- being on "Celebrity Handyman" had to be worth some goddamn thing-at the table near the bandstand where a bunch of people who used to have network TV series sat.

    

    

    It took some time for Tobin to recognize who was what but after a few drinks everything came clear.

    Jere Farris, the producer, was dressed up as a cowboy; Alicia Farris was dressed up as Calamity Jane; Todd Ames, the new host, was Robin Hood and his wife, Beth, was a mermaid; Cassie McDowell was Bo Peep; Susan Richards was a hooker in a slit skirt and bountiful white peasant blouse; and Kevin Anderson was Tarzan. Everybody on the celebrity dais sat in a semicircle, just as they did on the "Celebrity Circle" set.

    Only Anderson seemed even remotely happy to see Tobin and Cindy, and Anderson was interested only in Cindy. He looked as if he regretted throwing her out and blacking her eye this morning. Her nun's habit really did stir you up.

    Tobin was about to start his third drink when he saw Joanna Howard sit down at a table out with the civilians. She was dressed up as Amelia Earhart-leather flying cap, leather jacket, fancy white trailing scarf- and she looked, in a stark way, lovely. She also looked, as always, lost.

    "Poor kid," Tobin said, feeling his booze more than he'd imagined-or hoped-he would. Then he told Cindy all about Joanna's wretched love life.

    Cindy nodded. "She reminds me of Aberdeen. Only skinnier."

    "We should invite her up here to sit with us."

    "Yes, we should." He was surprised to hear her slosh her words, as he was sloshing his.

    He stood up-wobbly now-put his two pinkie fingers in his teeth, and whistled. Or tried to. About halfway through, he recalled that he didn't know
how
to whistle. It was just one of many reasons he'd felt inferior to all the other boys growing up. That and being slightly shorter than every kid's little brother.

    So he did what seemed natural, at the moment anyway. He stood up and shouted, "Hey, Joanna!"

    She was embarrassed by the attention.

    Tobin persisted. "Hey, come on up here!"

    So she came up, obviously just to keep him quiet.

    "Quite a crowd, isn't it?" Joanna said, having to raise her voice to be heard above the drunken din. She was obviously uncomfortable raising her voice.

    "You don't have a date, do you?" Cindy said. She made it sound as if Joanna had just had her arm amputated.

    Joanna's eyes shifted miserably to Jere Farris, bombed and swinging a champagne glass around, spilling some on his spangly Grand Ole Opry cowboy clothes.

    "No," she said.

    "Then you get right up here and sit with us," Cindy said grandly, and started patting the empty chair next to her as if Joanna were a poodle who knew when to jump up on her mistress's lap.

    "Oh," Joanna said, obviously about to protest.

    "You come on now," Cindy McBain said. "I'm a nun and you're supposed to obey me." She giggled.

    "Well," Joanna said, her eyes once again hooking forlornly on Jere's face. "Well, I guess it would be all right.”

    

    

    Three drinks later, Cindy, who held her liquor as well as any other horny fourteen-year-old junior-high girl said, "Tobin tells me you're in love with Jere Farris."

    Which of course got Tobin one of those ten-thou-sand-daggers-in-your-heart glances from Joanna. "I… I care for Jere."

    Cindy patted her hand. "As soon as Tobin goes tinkle, I'll tell you all about married men."

    Tobin was about to protest when he felt Alicia Farris's glare on him. She obviously did not care to have her husband's mistress sitting at the same table and Tobin really didn't blame her. He'd been drunk enough that he'd forgotten all about the impropriety of asking Joanna up here.

    The lounge boys left the stage to far too much applause, replaced by a dance combo that turned "When Sunny Gets Blue" into a foxtrot.

    The dancing began with confetti and streamers drifting from the ceiling.

    Tobin turned to ask Cindy to dance but he saw that she was deep in conversation with Joanna. "I've always had a simple rule about married men. If they don't give you a gift every month that's worth at least a thousand dollars, then you're really wasting your time."

    Susan Richards must have seen Tobin's dilemma because she walked around the celebrity dais and came over to him. "Would you like to dance?"

    "You're about three inches taller than me."

    She smiled her wonderful smile. "You can stand on my feet."

    The band played "Fly Me to the Moon" and they danced.

    She smelled luxuriantly of perfume and herself and he held her tighter than was necessary but she didn't seem to mind, indeed laid her long fingers gently on the back of his neck as they moved through the melancholy darkness of the dance floor, the feeling like that of a New Year's Eve bash, hilarity and a certain sadness at the same time.

    Then she startled him by leaning down (she was actually closer to five inches taller in her hooker heels) and brushing her mouth against his.

    He came alive in a way that was almost painful, yet was also a wonderful experience for a forty-two-year-old sot who had recently begun worrying not about the quantity of his erections but the quality.

    "My God," he said.

    "I'm drunk."

    "So am I."

    "I only do this sometimes. I'm really not promiscuous."

    "Neither am I," he said, "though it's not for want of trying."

    She smiled. "'The maid who laughs is half taken.'"

    "Fifteenth century, I believe."

    "Something like that. But it's true. I like your jokes on the set. Everybody else is so concerned about the show. But you-"

    She touched her mouth to his again.

    He felt transported back to 1958 and the St. Michael's gym. He was moving as one about the floor with Mary Sue O'Hallahan. He knew she knew he had an erection that threatened to cause him a heart attack. He wondered if she minded. That had always been the big mystery in those days-did girls actually
want
you to get erections or did they just sort of put up with it when you did?

    All these long years later, he was getting his answer.

    "My cabin or yours?" she said easily.

    And then he happened to glance over her shoulder-actually through her armpit, his level of vision not reaching her shoulder-and saw Todd Ames in his Robin Hood getup start to leave the celebrity dais.

    Tobin assumed he was going one of two places. To the biffy or to Tobin's cabin.

    Tobin would lay even money on the latter.

    "Could we," he said miserably, "meet a little later?"

    Pressed against him, and breathless as he, she said, "Later? Tobin, are you crazy?"

    "I know. And I'm sorry. But…"

    She stared at him with her overly made-up eyes (wasn't there a hooker someplace on God's own planet who didn't wear any makeup at all). With a quiet air of disbelief in her voice, she said, "You having some problems?"

    "No."

    "I mean, we don't have to jump on top of each other. Sometimes men your age-well, I love necking myself. It's like high school again."

    Wretchedly, he watched Todd Ames leave the restaurant.

    And all he could do was break and run.

    "Tobin!" she shouted. "Tobin! You get back here!"

    But by now Ames had vanished and Tobin was worried that he wouldn't be able to beat him back to his cabin.

    

    

    He had to climb three flights of stairs and run down what seemed endless miles of corridor. He was sweating and panting and just about ready to barf when he reached his cabin door.

    He pushed his ear to the wood and listened.

    Party sounds floated up from below; a sky gorgeous with summer stars spread with radiant beauty round the entire world.

    From inside, nothing.

    Quickly, he inserted his key and ducked into his cabin.

    

    

    

    Todd Ames had apparently gone to the John because twenty minutes after entering his cabin Tobin had neither heard from nor seen the man.

    Which caused a certain degree of resentment in Tobin. Standing up in a corner of the dark closet was not fun. At least it was big and mostly empty but still it was dull, particularly given the fact that Tobin had abandoned the chance to have some sort of tryst with Susan Richards to be here.