Buzz Cut

by James W. Hall

  After a five-minute delay, Miami Coast Guard Lieutenant Bill Ciardi informed Maranzana that their float plan records showed the Juggernaut was currently at port in Freeport, Bahamas, taking on a cargo of crude oil. It was scheduled to begin its voyage around the Florida Straits later on that Monday morning, arriving at the Amoco refinery in Galveston by late Wednesday.

  Sugarman held out his hand and Maranzana handed him the microphone.

  "Lieutenant Ciardi, we have reason to believe," Sugarman said, "that the Juggernaut may be the target of either a hijack attempt or some form of terrorist sabotage."

  Ciardi was silent for a moment. Static filling the radio room.

  "Who am I speaking with?" Ciardi asked.

  "Chief of Security Sugarman. Fiesta Cruise Lines."

  "What is the basis for your suspicion of this terrorist attack sir?"

  Sugarman told him about the paper they'd discovered.

  "A sheet of paper?" Ciardi said.

  "It appears to be an outline of his course of action. The paper was discovered in the cabin of a person who is the prime suspect in several crimes committed aboard the M.S. Eclipse in recent months."

  "What kind of crimes, sir?"

  "Casino theft and violence against persons."

  "Have these crimes been reported to the Coast Guard? Do we have a case number?"

  "They haven't been reported, no."

  "And why is that?"

  "You'd have to take that up with Morton Sampson."

  "Have I heard you correctly, Mr. Sugarman? The Juggernaut is merely listed on this paper? Its name alone? No other details concerning this alleged terrorist conspiracy?"

  "That's right. Just its name, but—"

  Ciardi told him to hold on. There was a click and more static. Sugarman frowning around at the wall of dials and switches. He was gripping the microphone so hard he thought he heard the plastic crack along its seam. He forced himself to back off a notch. When Ciardi returned, the man was brisk.

  "Mr. Sugarman, we will radio the Juggernaut and request that they perform an immediate internal security check."

  "Hey, hold on," Sugarman said. "We need a good deal more than that. You need to keep them in port. Then land some of your engineering people, your explosives team, sweep every corner of the ship. There could be also something wrong with its navigational or electronics equipment. You should be looking for any kind of trouble they've experienced since leaving Baltimore. We're dealing with a man with a thorough knowledge of nautical electronics. He's shrewd and his plan seems to involve the extortion of a large sum of money. And we have a witness who puts him on the Juggernaut two days ago in Baltimore."

  "Now we're talking about extortion? Not terrorism."

  "Fifty-eight million dollars. We believe that will be his asking price."

  "Mr. Sugarman, feel free to fax us whatever relevant information you may have. We'll review it and decide what appropriate action to take. Beyond that, I can't say we are persuaded to take further measures based on the information you've provided so far."

  "Look, goddamn it, something very bad's about to go down. Something involving the Juggernaut. It would be a grave fucking error if you don't use all deliberate speed to get onto that goddamn ship and check it over with extreme care."

  "Negative, Mr. Sugarman."

  "Negative? That's all you got to say? Negative?"

  "Apparently you're not aware of this, sir, but the United States Coast Guard is straining its resources at this moment. Our mission is primarily search and rescue. We help out with some drug interdiction, but we simply don't have the manpower to inspect a vessel based on a suspicious sheet of paper discovered in a cabin on a commercial cruise ship. Is that understood?"

  Maranzana whispered to Sugarman, "It is Cuban rafting season. They are picking up hundreds of refugees every day. This is not a good time to ask favors of the Coast Guard."

  "Understood," Sugar growled into the microphone, and clicked it off. "Understood."

  ***

  Sugarman's plate was stacked high with pancakes, scrambled eggs, strips of bacon, sausage patties, and a cup of baked cinnamon apples. Heart food. He was wearing a pair of khaki slacks, a snug teal shirt with epaulets. Cordovan boat shoes, one of the leather laces flopping loose.

  When he set his plate of food at the table and took the seat between Thorn and Monica, Thorn nodded at his shoelace and Sugar bent to retie it.

  The TV people had rolled out a couple of cameras on trolleys and passengers were beginning to fill the front rows. Over in the hot tub, the gang of revelers continued to revel. For the last ten minutes they'd been singing a song in unison. So off key and out of sync it was impossible to comprehend.

  "Monica wants out," Thorn said.

  She glared at him.

  Sugarman speared a baked apple and got it as far as his lips then set his fork down on the edge of his plate.

  "Okay," Sugar said, giving her a strained smile. "We'll find another way then."

  "This isn't my fight," she said. "Butler Jack can have his fifty-eight million for all I care. He'll do better things with it than my father."

  Sugarman nodded thoughtfully.

  "Probably right," he said. "I'd bail too if I could."

  "What're they doing with the bodies? Jenkins and Cruz and Dorfman," Thorn said. "They going to take them ashore here?"

  "No," Sugar said. "Sampson wants to keep them on ice till we return to Miami. Soon as it gets out about Dale Jenkins, the shit'll be all over the walls. Sampson wants enough time to invent a good lie. For now the story is, Dale has something contagious. Nobody's allowed in his room. The doc came up with the name of a tropical disease that'll keep him in quarantine."

  "What bullshit." Thorn glared at Rafael.

  "Next of kin?" Monica said. "Won't someone be looking for him, wondering where the hell he is?"

  "The man's got no family. Apparently he's got a habit of lying low. A solitary drinker. All Sampson's worried about is this Brandy Wong woman finding out about the murder. The tropical disease thing is for her."

  "Is there a law, reporting a murder in a timely fashion?"

  "You got me," Sugarman said. "But the word is, we're going on like nothing's happened. Brandy's running around. She knows something's wrong, big news. But she doesn't know what. I'll give her till sunset before she cracks the shell."

  "Oh, she'll know sooner than that," Thorn said. "Soon as Lola Live starts."

  Monica said, "Forget it, I'm not going to do it."

  "Nobody's asking you to do it," Thorn said. "I'm going to do it."

  "You?"

  "What? You think just because I never watch this shit I can't be a TV star? Hey, stick around."

  Sugar gave Monica a small smile.

  "He's crazy," Sugar said. "He's clinically out of it."

  "Oh, by the way," Thorn said. "What is this shit about you and Jeannie, a divorce?"

  "Where the hell'd you hear that?"

  Thorn told him about Mrs. Miranda, his neighbor.

  "Oh, that woman's got it screwed up as usual. Jeannie went off to California for a few weeks. That's all."

  "California."

  "Place called Sylvan Farms, near Santa Barbara. Some kind of holistic pregnancy clinic. She sent off for the literature, got all frenzied. Somehow or other these people guaranteed her she'd come home knocked up."

  "She take along some of your frozen sperm?"

  "I overnighted it out there on dry ice so it would be waiting for her. Can you believe it? I'm letting fly on one coast so she can get pregnant four thousand miles away. Of course, I got my doubts. I think the sperm thing is just a coverup. The place sounds more like a stud farm to me. She goes out there for three weeks, gets boffed by a long line of these surfer boys, comes home with her kettle bubbling."

  "But you let her go anyway."

  "Yes, I did. If that's what it takes to make her happy."

  Monica shook her head.

  "You're both crazy," she said.
r />   Thorn raised his eyebrows, twiddled an imaginary cigar. Gave his Groucho imitation a little Mae West inflection. "You think this is crazy? Just wait, honey doll. They haven't even turned on the spotlights yet."

  ***

  Monica thought they'd argue harder. Force her to go ahead with it. But they shrugged it off, Thorn getting up from breakfast, carrying his dictionary, giving her a wink, and going off with Sugarman. Not even a good-bye and good luck.

  She sat at the table watching the TV crew work, the show's familiar set taking shape. A busboy came by, took the plates, asked her if she wanted anything to drink. She said no, she was just leaving. But she didn't get up.

  She listened to the announcements coming over the loudspeakers, descriptions of the various excursions and tours around Nassau, Paradise Island, the marketplace, snorkeling the reef. As soon as Lola Live was over, the ship would dock. Around her people were grumbling, wanting to go ashore now. But the TV show needed an audience. How would it look, Lola sitting out on the deck of the Eclipse, nobody to clap, nobody to laugh at Rafael's drolleries? Apparently they'd made a tactical decision, anchor up just offshore, show the gorgeous skyline in the background. Keep their audience captive.

  Monica got up, headed for the stern stairway. She carried her laundry bag, all her earthly possessions. She'd wander around for another hour, work her way down to the head of the gangway, maybe pick up some toiletries, any other supplies, charge them to her room, be among the first to disembark. Stay with the crowd, she'd be safe. Butler would be distracted by Thorn's little drama.

  At the top of the stairs she stopped, turned back, leaned against the rail and gazed out at the island. The Bahamas would be fine. Get off, drift away from the docks, sniff around, find a job in one of the motels. Nobody had to know. Take back Irma Slater. Get another routine going. It would be fine, it would be a new adventure. Go over to Andros. Thorn had mentioned it. She'd heard before it was nice there. Not so touristy. Younger.

  Maybe she could work her way down through the islands, St. Martin, Guadeloupe, Grenada, Martinique, Antigua, Nevis. There was no reason she couldn't do that. Explore the blue waters. Take her pad and pen and sharpen her drawing skills. It sounded good. It sounded very good. Romantic, exotic. She was young. She was smart and didn't mind hard work. She could let her hair grow back, maybe choose another name this time, a completely fresh identity. Monique, Manuela. Something with Gypsy charm. There were lots of islands. So many she didn't even know all their names.

  All she had to do was walk down that gangplank, step off into a new world. All she had to do was wait till Lola Live was over.

  Wait till that damn TV show was finished so she could disembark, get back to inventing her life.

  She had nothing to say to her father. Thorn was wrong. Confronting him would prove absolutely nothing. She wasn't running away from him anymore. She couldn't care less about him and his new wife. She couldn't care any fucking less if she tried.

  CHAPTER 28

  It was almost nine. One of the cameras panned across the crowd showing all the chairs taken. More than half the two thousand passengers in attendance. A hubbub as the stage lights cranked up. The image on the screen shifted to the helicopter shot, a wide panorama of the Eclipse at anchor, the cameraman panning to the right across the harbor, showing the distant hotels. A camera check.

  Another camera took over, showing Lola perched on a tall director's chair, legs crossed, wearing a bright red pant suit, hair drawn back tight, swirled around into a bun. Pearl necklace, pearl earrings. Looking trim and sexy, the top two buttons of the pants suit undone, exposing her sun-freckled cleavage as she leaned forward to chat with some of the lucky folks in the front row. Smiling at them, full of charm. Harlot. Trollop. Slut.

  Butler Jack watched the spectacle on his handheld TV, cramped in his nook. Around him were arrayed the portable VCR and the microphone, phone unit and the miniature Magnavox autopilot, each unit spliced into the appropriate wires. All of them switched off for the moment. The ship at rest in the calm bay.

  This time tomorrow it would be done. The cataclysm. All the televisions in the world would speak his name. Two-inch headlines. Tuesday his name would be echoing in every corner of the globe. The man who rose from the bottom of the ocean floor, the rogue wave, the tidal surge, the great wall of water rushing toward shore. He would be more famous than Lola, more famous than Morton. They would know his name, speak it with awe. Butler Jack, who stole millions from one of the richest men in the world only to give it all away to thousands of the poorest.

  There he was, on the brink of triumph, and wouldn't you know? His balls had gotten worse. They'd begun to swell, probably from the position he'd been forced to assume for these last twenty-four hours. Lying down, cramped, working out the final details. They were back to tennis balls. Darkening. Tender. Every minor movement sent a wallop through his belly. He was nauseous. A hot twist in his gut as if someone had plunged a dagger there and was thumping the handle.

  But even more troubling than his testicles was the woman who'd come into the chapel an hour ago. She was praying out loud. Kneeling at her pew and speaking to God or her dead husband, Butler wasn't sure. She seemed to have the two mixed up. Asking him to help her, explaining she was down to her last three dollars. Lost the rest last night on the slots. Money her husband had left her, sentimental money she'd been using to gamble with all these years and now it had dwindled to just those three dollars. Holding up the hotel envelope for God to see. And she didn't know what the hell to do. Should she wager those precious three dollars, risk losing them, and thus lose all connection to her husband? Should she set it aside, a last remembrance of her spouse? Or perhaps she should donate it to some needy cause, or scatter the dollars overboard? She wept. An old woman with steel-gray hair, a dark blue dress with tiny white flowers. Butler shifted aside a ceiling tile an inch or two to spy on her as she sobbed.

  It was always the little things. Butler's Law. The little details fucked you up. Microscopic dust. A fleck of rust that fouled the connection, one small screw working loose. It was an old woman talking to God or her husband. An old woman down to her last three dollars, praying in the chapel for divine help. A woman who would have to be killed, dragged somewhere else. Complicating things. And it was his testicles. Little things becoming big things. Hurdles growing large, threatening to fuck up years of work.

  His balls hurt so bad, the thought passed through his mind, maybe he should take the dagger, cut them off. Testicles. The Greek word was orchis, orchid, from the shape of the flower's tuber. Orchidectomy being the technical term for castration. Cutting away the orchid's roots. Or in the Latin, castrare, from castus, which meant pure. Castration being used on the eastern slaves to keep the women pure. Castus, as in the caste system, to keep the races pure. Cut off their economic balls. Emasculate them. Purify them. Keep them in their place. And there was the other Latin term, testiculus, which referred to the ancient practice of swearing an oath by putting a hand on the nuts. Over the centuries the balls evolved into the Holy Bible. Testimony required a hand on the Testament. I hereby swear on my sacred nuts.

  Butler had an idea. Smiling to himself as it took form. He squirmed to his right, reached out his hand, and inched aside the ceiling tile. He wormed closer, grinning. He brought his mouth near the slit, pushed his voice deep into his throat, trying to give his tenor some resonance, turn it into a bass, saying "Give your money to the poor."

  The woman swung around but there was no one else in the chapel. Butler watched her trembling. Her hand holding the envelope fluttered in the air.

  "What?" she said softly. "What did you say?" Staring at the pulpit, the cross behind it.

  "The poor," Butler intoned. "Give your money to the poor."

  He slid the ceiling tile back in place, rolled onto his back. Had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle his chortles.

  As he lay there, eyes streaming with tears, he turned his head and glanced at the two-inch TV screen. His gaze fre
ezing on the picture. He stopped breathing, bent close. Blinking, wiping his eyes. Not believing what he saw though it was happening right there on the little square of light. Monica in a pair of Bermuda shorts and a work shirt, sitting in the chair next to Lola as the female director counted backward to ten.

  ***

  "What the fuck does she think she's doing! Get security. Where's fucking security?"

  Rafael was doing a little war dance off to the side of the stage set, a jig like his bladder was about to burst. One arm windmilling as he yelled, the woman director shushing him, counting backward, five to four, to three, two. And Thorn tapped Rafael on the shoulder as Monica got comfortable in the slingback chair. Thorn giving her a smile as she settled in.

  "You rang?" Thorn said to Rafael.

  "You're security?"

  "Right-o."

  The theme song blared over the speakers. The red applause light blinked rapidly and the passengers responded with faithful good cheer. Rafael hissing through all of it, hissing at Thorn to get that fucking girl off the stage.

  Lola had shrunk back from Monica, looked like she might tip over backward in her director's chair.

  "Well, then fucking do something. Get her off there now. Do your fucking job. She's not supposed to be up there."

  As the applause was dying down, Lola's recorded voice began to narrate a sketch of their voyage so far. All the fun they'd been having. A video clip played on all the monitors. A wide-angled helicopter shot of the beautiful ship, an expanse of blue sea around it, then showing several lush interior views of the Starlight Room, close-ups of plates of gorgeous food, moving on to the Galaxy Nightclub, the tall showgirls strutting, feathers and sequins, Lola describing the first-class entertainment. Quick shots of Brandy Wong, Dale Jenkins, Beverly Mitchell and her backup group.