She laughed. She began to relax in my arms. “You’re a wonderful dancer.”
“Nothing fancy,” I assured her.
“Men who get too fancy on the dance floor are men who look in every mirror they pass.”
The allusion was to her husband. I didn’t say anything. They ended the medley with a samba.
It was partner-switching time again, but Shiraz had other ideas. A couple of guys headed in Erica’s direction, but he froze them with a mildly contemptuous, one-eyebrow-cocked smile, and they went away. Mr. Fontein came over to dance with Carol. I sat the next couple of medleys out, watching Shiraz and Erica. They stayed glued together. He did a lot of earnest talking. She stared at him with wry amusement in her big green eyes. They did a fine, gliding tango as smoothly as if they were wearing roller skates. The music stopped. I got up and headed in their direction. Shiraz cocked his eyebrow at me.
“How’s about waiting for the next roll of the ship,” he suggested, “and then you roll with it.”
“You mean you won’t dance with me?” I ask in a crestfallen and mincing voice. Erica grinned. “Then I guess I’ll have to settle for your partner.”
“Why, I’d be delighted,” Erica said firmly, and Shiraz had no choice but to bow gracefully away.
We started to dance. “Thanks for rescuing me, Chet.”
“From what?”
“A first class boor. In fifteen minutes I got told, let me see, that his wife doesn’t understand him, is unfortunately enceinte and a party-poop to boot. Oh yes, I also got asked if I was in a single cabin and when the answer was affirmative I got propositioned. How I hate those smug and conceited masterful types. Are you a smug and conceited masterful type?”
“I just stopped being one,” I said.
“Also,” she said, “he is going to give a demonstration of his manly prowess in the ship’s gym tomorrow morning and I’ve been invited to watch.”
“What kind of demonstration?”
“Judo. With the gym instructor who no doubt has been paid to make him look good.”
“Will you be there?”
“With the hope that he falls flat on his face. How I hate those—”
“You already said that.”
She came closer against me and we danced leg to leg for a while. To do that the girl had to be your own height or close to it. Erica Nordstrom qualified.
“Is there a Mrs. Drum?”
“There was, a long time ago. It didn’t work out.”
“Does it ever? It’s just that some people admit it doesn’t, and others don’t.”
“The lady is a cynic.”
“Whan it comes to vows of eternal togetherness. Nothing is more depressing than a marriage that drags on and on after they should have called it quits.”
“One thing is,” I said. “Hopping from bed to bed with no more feeling than an alleycat on the prowl, that’s more depressing.”
“I’m glad you said that.”
“It’s easy to say. The only trouble is, I’ve been known to do it.”
“I’m still glad you said it.”
“How come?”
“Because you’re an attractive guy, and now I know it isn’t all on the surface.”
The music stopped. Male heads turned speculatively in Erica’s direction.
“Want a breath of fresh ocean air before the parade begins?” I suggested.
“Parade? Oh, I see. It will be freezing out on deck.”
“You probably swim in the Hardanger Fjord on New Year’s Day.”
“Will you make a pass at me?”
“You want to know the truth, I haven’t decided yet.”
“What does it depend on?”
“Whether you seem receptive.”
She smiled then. “That’s exactly the right answer. Or maybe you knew it would be.”
It was very cold on Boat Deck.
We walked aft, with the wind blowing like a hurricane at our backs. Erica was wearing my jacket as a cape. Her long blond hair whipped about her face. She shouted something I couldn’t hear. We started to run along the Officers’ Promenade, and she grabbed hold of my hand. There was a light in a window. Erica stopped and looked in at a man stretching and scratching his bare chest. Erica made a face at the window. The man looked out at her, startled. The wind swept her laughter away. We ran again, watching the ship’s wake cream away from the hull, phosphorescent in the moonlight. The dark shapes of the lifeboats loomed against the sky.
We found a door, ducked inside, went along a dim passageway and found another door that wasn’t locked. I fumbled for the light switch. There were pint-sized tables and chairs, a row of rocking horses, huge blocks strewn on the floor, wildly colored pictures on the walls—the children’s playroom.
“I knew we’d get here sooner or later,” I said. “I’m just a kid at heart.”
“It was so cold outside. I can hardly breathe.” Her face was flushed. Her green eyes sparkled. “I wonder what kind of games they play.”
“The kids? Grown-up games are more fun.”
I demonstrated that by taking her in my arms and kissing her. She broke it up after a while and nibbled at my ear. “I think I’m going to like your game,” she said. There was something unexpectedly kittenish about her, as though her Amazonian size were an accident. I ran my hands along her back. She turned a little, and I cupped the soft firmness of her breast in my hand.
My jacket fell from her shoulders. A sheet of paper slipped out of the inside pocket and fluttered to the linoleum floor. We both looked down at it. The word RADIOGRAM stared up at us in big black letters.
“Bon voyage from the girl friend, I’ll bet,” Erica said with a laugh, and ducked to retrieve the sheet of paper.
I covered it with my shoe.
She looked up at me through her wind-tangled hair. “No? A big secret?”
“That’s right.”
She started to straighten up. I crouched to get the radiogram. She laughed, and her shoulder came against me suddenly. She was kittenish only when it suited her. Her shoulder took me out of the play like a tackle throwing a good downfield block. Still laughing, she retrieved the radiogram and started reading.
“Let’s have it,” I said.
“Why, it’s not a bon voyage from the girl friend at all,” she said, still laughing. “It’s some kind of—”
I snatched it out of her hands, feeling a little foolish. The whole thing was probably what it appeared to be, an accident. She hadn’t taken the radiogram from my pocket after all. So she was curious. So what?
“It’s in code,” I said. “The words stand for numbers which stand for other words in Swahili.”
She wagged a finger at me. “He’s on holiday, the man said. It looks to me like he’s working.”
I got my jacket and put it on and put the radiogram back where it belonged.
She shrugged her shapely shoulders. “One of these days my curiosity is going to get me into trouble. Are you mad at me?”
“The hell with it,” I said. “Let’s go get a nightcap.”
“Where?”
I paused a second. What the hell, I thought. “My cabin’s right here on Boat Deck.”
“No. No, thank you.” She looked at my face. “It’s a little—too soon.”
We went to the Café de la Paix and had a couple of drinks. Jack wasn’t surprised to see us together. We talked about nothing in particular with great animation. Suddenly I asked: “What brings you aboard?”
She arched an eyebrow and smiled a small, secret smile. “Why, the same as you. I’m on holiday.”
The way she said it puzzled me. She was lying, of course, but nobody is that bad a liar. She wanted me to know she was lying. It was like a challenge.
We went through the connecting doors to first class and I walked her to her cabin on Prom Deck.
“The gym,” she said. “Don’t forget. Nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Nine o’clock? That’s the middle of the night.”
“You know what I think? I think Mr. Ahmed Shiraz, given the proper kind of help, is going to make a fool of himself. Will you be there?”
“Sure, why not? What kind of help would he need to make a fool of himself?”
“You’ll see.”
I didn’t kiss her goodnight.
Back on Boat Deck, the door to my cabin wasn’t locked.
I had told the steward not to lock it after turning down the bed, claiming I was an absent-minded type when it came to a key.
It was a functional one-man cabin with bed, round table, chair, dresser and wall of closets. My B-4 bag was under the bed where I had left it, empty except for the .44 Magnum in its shoulder rig and a can of talcum powder.
Only the faint film of talc I had blown across the top of the dresser was disturbed. Even the envelope that had held Sammy Green’s radiogram was in place. It had been put back in place after whoever had picked it up learned to his disappointment that it was empty.
Nobody can pick an envelope straight up off a flat and slick surface. You have to slide it a fraction of an inch anyway, and sliding it will disturb a not quite invisible film of talc.
I rolled the ball of my index finger to the left of the envelope and held it up to make sure. White grains of powder thinly coated the whorls of my fingerprint. I tried it again, index finger of my other hand and the area of the dresser in front of the envelope. Just a few lonely grains of white talc adhered to my finger. The envelope had been moved all right.
It could have been the steward, straightening things out or just plain curious.
It could have been Shiraz.
The only one it couldn’t have been was Erica Nordstrom, who had been with me all evening.
That left fifteen hundred other passengers and about a thousand crew members.
I made the mistake of putting my money on Shiraz.
7
WHO, AT two bells in the morning, was all decked out in a white Japanese judo suit.
Word of his exhibition had got around. About twenty people had crowded into the small gym, lining the walls, leaning against the stationary bicycles, sitting on the rowing machines. I didn’t see Erica anywhere.
“It’s a question of skill, timing and leverage,” Shiraz was explaining to two young girls wearing slacks and apache shirts. “A lot of Hollywood types use a stunt man for their hand-to-hand brawl scenes, but not me. You want to do something right, you do it yourself. Isn’t that right?” he asked the gym instructor.
“That’s right, sir.” The Rotterdam’s phys. ed. man was a young guy wearing white ducks and a T-shirt. He had a mildly embarrassed look on his face, as though he had been instructed to do something he found distasteful—such as playing rag doll for Shiraz’s judo exhibition.
“Are you black belt or something?” one of the girls asked in a bored voice.
“Never had the time,” Shiraz said deprecatingly. “But I picked up a trick here and there.” He glanced around, looking for someone. He seemed disappointed. It was five after nine on the wall clock.
“Ready, sir?” the phys. ed. man asked.
“Couple of minutes.”
Finally Erica Nordstrom, dressed in bell-bottom black slacks, a loose black silk blouse and sandals came in. She wore no makeup. Her long blond hair had been tied in two pigtails.
“Did I miss anything?” she asked.
“Just about to begin,” Shiraz told her with a big grin. “A little manly exercise before breakfast. Ready, Johnny?”
Johnny nodded, and they squared off facing each other, barefoot, on a couple of adjacent gym mats. Johnny played his role well. He made a ferocious face and a half-hearted lunge at Shiraz. The actor pivoted, clamped a wrist-lock on him and bent his arm outward and back. “The slightest pressure will break it at the elbow. Right, Johnny?”
Johnny said that was right, and they squared off again. Johnny let himself be thrown in a shoulder roll. He landed on his back and somersaulted to his feet. A few people applauded. One of the girls wearing an apache shirt squealed. Erica smiled her small, secret smile. I wondered what was on her mind. I wondered if she had seen what I had seen. Shiraz knew his judo holds but would have had difficulty executing them without Johnny’s cooperation.
“This time he comes up behind me with a knife,” Shiraz said. Johnny was holding a pencil in his hand and melodramatically stalking Shiraz from the rear. Shiraz seemed unconcerned until the pencil appeared over his right shoulder. Then he grabbed Johnny’s wrist with both hands, dropped to one knee and threw Johnny head-over-heels. Again the phys. ed. man sprang nimbly to his feet. He had set himself up for the throw by stepping in close to Shiraz’s heels. Had he taken a single step back Shiraz would have been unable to make the throw. He had practically hurled himself over Shiraz’s shoulder like a well-rehearsed TV wrestler.
“You see, nothing to it,” Shiraz said calmly. His attitude reminded me of his fight with Sailor on Houston Street, the difference being that while he was a pretty good two-fisted brawler he wasn’t much of a judo man. What he was, chiefly, was a guy who had to have an audience.
A few falls later he stepped back and dusted off his hands. He thanked Johnny, who seemed relieved that it was over. “Anybody else want a go at it?” he asked, looking straight at me.
Nobody said anything.
“How about it, Drum? You’re the only one here my size.”
“Me?” I asked.
“Sure, come on. I’ll teach you a couple of tricks. Nothing to it.”
There was nothing I would have liked better than to teach Shiraz a lesson. He was the kind of guy who brought that out in you. But I declined with a quick shake of my head. “I don’t feel very athletic at nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Suit yourself,” Shiraz sneered. “Anybody else?”
A couple of spectators started heading for the door. Then a voice said: “I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.”
Those few words nailed everybody, even Shiraz, to the spot. Erica Nordstrom had said them.
Shiraz looked at her. “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny.”
“No, really. I always wanted to learn a little judo.”
Shiraz gave her an exaggerated leer. “Glad to try a different kind of wrestling with you any old time,” he said. The two apache girls exchanged glances and giggled.
“Just a couple of little falls?” Erica said with a pout. “I promise not to get hurt. Actually, I know a little judo myself.”
Shiraz began to look uneasy. Erica was stealing his thunder. If he took her on he was bound to make a fool of himself whatever happened. If he declined, the one person for whom the exhibition had been staged would be annoyed.
Erica kicked off her sandals. “You said someone your own size. See? I’m practially as tall as you are.”
Shiraz laughed nervously. “I outweigh you by anyway forty, fifty pounds.”
“That doesn’t mean a thing in judo.”
Shiraz looked around helplessly. The expression on his face said this was one of those days you were sorry you had climbed out of bed.
“Well?” Erica said with a lazy smile.
Shiraz made up his mind. “Ah, what the heck,” he said, “I’ll give you one lesson. But just one. Which fall would you like to learn?”
“I’m not particular,” Erica said. “Anything that comes to mind, I guess.”
Reluctantly he crouched with his hands held open at the level of his waist. With expert economy of motion Erica caught the loose folds of his judo shirt, spun and threw him in a shoulder roll. He landed heavily. Johnny’s face split in a broad grin which he immediately subdued.
Shiraz got to his feet. “Where’d you learn that?”
“From watching you.” Erica squared off again, and Shiraz backed away from her. A man standing at the wall behind him began to laugh.
“Hey, Shiraz,” he said, “I got a seven year old daughter. Want to try a tumble with her?”
Shiraz turned on him quickly, pleased that he could direct his
anger at a heckler. “If you want to try a couple of falls, buddy—”
“Look out,” Erica cried, “I’m coming at you with a knife.”
With his back to her Shiraz could either run away or perform the knife trick again. He reached up for Erica’s wrist, not quite quickly enough.
“It wasn’t really a knife after all,” Erica said. “As anyone can see, I’m not armed.” She caught Shiraz’s forearm, raised it and ducked in under and in front of him, setting her bare feet firmly on the mat and clamping a double wrist-lock on him. It’s a complicated hold, far more difficult than Shiraz’s simple wrist-lock. Applied expertly it can break the arm like a matchstick.
“If I put a bit of pressure on it,” Erica lecturèd, “he either resists and breaks his own arm or takes a fall. Like this.”
Shiraz went over sideways, hitting the mat with a jarring thud and flopping on his back, thrown possibly harder than Erica had intended and then again possibly not. She straddled him quickly, leaned forward with her pigtails dangling and pinned his shoulders to the mat. He struggled furiously for an instant and couldn’t free himself. Then he pretended not to struggle at all.
Erica got up and dusted off her hands, miming Shiraz’s gesture perfectly. Shiraz lay there, breathing through his mouth. The fall had knocked the wind out of him.
“Goodness,” Erica said, “I hope I didn’t hurt you. I’m terribly, terribly sorry, Mr. Shiraz.”
He got to his feet slowly. Erica shook hands with him. “Thanks an awful lot for the lesson,” she said, straight-faced. A few people started to laugh. Shiraz’s face turned an interesting color. He made a quick exit and, laughing more openly now, the spectators began to file from the gym. Erica came over to me.
“I’ll bet he doesn’t ask you to dance the rest of the crossing,” I said.
“That was the general idea.”
“Where the hell’d you learn that?”
“Oh,” she said, “it’s a hobby with me. I’ve been black belt for years.”
We went up to breakfast together. She looked as gorgeous and as feminine as ever.
8
Drumbeat Erica Page 5