Princess Charming

by Jane Heller

  “Run that by me again?”

  “The two men were plotting a murder, Simon. The guy on shore wanted the guy on the ship to kill his ex-wife—and do it before the Princess Charming was back in Miami.”

  “That’s incredible,” said Simon, adjusting his eyeglasses, focusing his attention on me more intently. “What did you do?”

  “I called the Purser’s Office to report the crossed phone wires. Then I went straight to see Captain Solberg. I told him that a woman on board his ship was the intended target of a hit man.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said I should take a Dramamine.”

  “No, really. How did he react?”

  “I’m serious. Talking to the guy was a total waste of time. I explained to him that a crime was about to be committed on his ship and he said he couldn’t take action unless a crime had already been committed. And then he suggested I go play bingo.”

  “Jesus. No wonder he made that crack about murderers when we were on the receiving line at the Captain’s Cocktail Party. He probably didn’t believe a word of your story.”

  “Neither did the police in Puerto Rico. But you believe my story, don’t you, Simon?”

  “Sure. The only thing I don’t understand is why you automatically assumed that Eric and I were the men you overheard on the phone and that you were the one we were out to get.”

  “I hate to admit this, but I have a tendency to automatically assume things, particularly regarding threats to my health and well-being. It’s a quirk of mine. A very minor quirk though.” I felt it was important to be honest with Simon, but I certainly didn’t want to scare him away.

  “That explains why you thought you were the ex-wife the men were plotting to kill. It doesn’t explain why you figured me for the hit man. I wasn’t exactly menacing you, was I?”

  “No, you were romancing me.”

  “Oh, now that makes everything crystal clear.” His tone was heavy with sarcasm.

  “You were romancing me, trying to get me alone,” I pressed on. “But it was when I stumbled on the not-insignificant fact that Sam Peck was really Simon Purdys that I decided you must be the hit man. I thought, this guy’s traveling under an alias and he’s been spending a lot of time with me. I put two and two together and found you guilty.”

  “I’m not sure I would have leapt to that precise verdict.”

  “That’s because you knew you were using an alias. You also knew why. But I didn’t have a clue that you were on assignment for Away from It All, remember? I was just some poor, unsuspecting shnook who fell in love with you the first night of the cruise.”

  The words popped out of my mouth before I could reel them back in, and I was so embarrassed I nearly hid my head inside Simon’s green polo shirt, the one I’d been folding and was about to put away in his dresser drawer.

  I had already told him I loved him, of course, on the night I’d stormed out of his cabin, the night of our aborted lovemaking. But that time, it had been less of an admission and more of an angry parting shot. Now, I had actually gone and revealed my true feelings for him. And all before we’d even exchanged home addresses and telephone numbers!

  He pulled me onto the bed next to him and kissed me. It was a long, passionate kiss, and while I certainly enjoyed it, I didn’t know if it was an I’ve-fallen-in-love-with-you-too kiss or a consolation prize.

  “Go on with the story,” he said after we pulled apart.

  “The story. Right,” I said, regrouping. “Once I found out that you were a travel writer, not a hit man, I figured it’s got to be some other ex-wife on the ship who’s in big trouble. But then I read this note.” I unfolded the nursery rhyme and read it again, shaking my head in rage and disbelief. “I’m telling you, Simon,” I said angrily. “If Eric so much as even thinks he’s gonna get rid of me while I’m on vacation, he’s—”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What makes you so sure that Eric is behind the note?”

  “He’s the only ex-husband I have.”

  “No, I mean: What makes you think you’re the ‘Blond Mouse’ that’s referred to in the rhyme?”

  “The fact that the note was slipped under my…” I stopped, remembering that it had been slipped under Jackie’s door.

  I told Simon about this, my voice trembling, my palms cold and clammy. “My God,” I said, the situation growing clearer now, even deadlier. “So Jackie’s the ex-wife the hit man’s after. That rotten Peter is having her killed. I had a hunch there was something sneaky about—”

  “Not so fast,” Simon interrupted. “Your cabin steward knew that all three of you were having dinner in Jackie’s room. It wasn’t a secret. It’s more than likely that the person who wrote the note knew you all were there too, especially if he’s been keeping close tabs on things. He could have intended the rhyme for any one of you. The envelope wasn’t addressed to anyone by name, was it?”

  “No.”

  “So there’s no way we can say for sure which of you three he’s after,” Simon confirmed. “The only thing we can say for sure is that he’s definitely after one of you.”

  I flew into his arms, knocking him down onto the bed, probably knocking the wind out of him too.

  “Should we tell Pat and Jackie?” I asked him. “I haven’t said a word to either of them up to now. Jackie just got out of the damn hospital and hasn’t had five minutes of fun on the trip. And Pat? How on earth is she going to handle a conversation about the possibility that her precious Bill may be planning to have her murdered? She actually thinks they’ll get back together someday! Not only that, she abhors violence or even any talk of it. She told me she wanted to be the first on her block to get a television set with a V-chip. Of course, she called it a T-chip.”

  Simon shook his head, seeming genuinely confounded as to how to deal with the situation. Or was it a flicker of fear I saw in his eyes? For me. For us.

  We sat back up on the bed.

  “Hey,” I said. “Don’t panic, please. You’re the only person on this ship who’s heard the story and believes it, the only person I can depend on now. You have to help me save Jackie’s life or Pat’s life or, God forbid, mine.”

  I knew full well what I asking. I was calling on a man who had spent the last two years torturing himself about not being able to save his fiancée’s life—imploring someone who was already wracked with survivor’s guilt, who already considered it a crime against nature that he hadn’t rescued a woman—to participate in yet another rescue operation. But the operative word here was “participate.” I was looking for him to share my burden, not carry it. I wanted to share everything with Simon, because I loved him. And whether he knew it or not, whether he was ready to admit it or not, he loved me too.

  “Remember, we’ll be partners in this,” I said, trying to clarify my position, make him more comfortable. “We’ll be helping each other solve the murder plot. It won’t fall on your shoulders alone to fix things, won’t be your responsibility.”

  “But it should be my responsibility,” Simon demanded, exhibiting the sort of macho behavior that I’d already given him permission to shed. Why can’t men understand that, as much as we appreciate their interest, we don’t require that they singlehandedly save the day? That it’s not their birthright to save the day?

  “Simon, I—”

  “Look, Slim. You were very amusing and entertaining the way you told the hit man story—almost as if it were just another dinner table anecdote—but you and I both know that the guy who wrote the note means business. I don’t want anything to happen to you on this cruise, okay?”

  I hugged him tightly. “Nothing’s going to happen to me on this cruise,” I said resolutely. “How can it? I’ve got a famous travel writer on my side.”

  “A famous travel writer, my ass,” he scoffed. “When I told you my real name, you’d never heard of me.”

  “I know,” I said apologetically. “For most of my life I’ve had tunnel vision; if it wasn’t expedient for me to know somet
hing or someone, I didn’t. I just didn’t realize the seriousness of the problem until I took this trip.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I see that my rigid view of the world has hurt me more than helped me, particularly when it comes to my emotional life.” Aw, what the heck, let it all hang out, I told myself, the way people often do when they’re convinced they’re about to die. “For example, I have a father I’ve refused to speak to since I was a teenager and a half-sister I’ve never even met. I shut them both out, pretended they don’t exist. But who knows? If I make it off this ship in one piece, I just might venture out of the tunnel.”

  Simon held me, stroked my hair, rubbed my back, murmured soft, soothing things to me. “I know,” he whispered at one point. “I’ve been in kind of a tunnel myself.”

  We remained in each other’s arms for a long time, both aware that we were living the proverbial calm before the storm. It was Simon who finally pulled away.

  “If we’re going to nail this hit man, we’d better get started,” he said after taking a deep breath and standing up straight and tall, his body language that of a man on a mission. “There are only two full days of the cruise left. We don’t have a whole lot of time to waste.”

  “No, we don’t,” I agreed.

  He sat back down on the bed when he realized we still needed to come up with a plan for catching the creep.

  “Can you think of any men you’ve met so far, any guy on the ship who’s been hanging around you or your friends or acting suspiciously?” he asked.

  “There are a few who keep turning up. It could be a coincidence, obviously, but on a ship this size, it’s been uncanny how often I’ve run into them. I can’t speak for Pat and Jackie. God knows who’s been lurking around them. But we might as well start somewhere.”

  I gave him thumbnail sketches of Henry Prichard, Albert Mullins, Lenny Lubin, and Skip Jamison. He listened, then said, “Is there any connection that you can think of between one of these men and either Eric, Peter, or Bill? Something that would link any of them to one of the ex-husbands?”

  “Not off the top of my head, but I’ll give it some more thought while I’m having breakfast with Jackie and Pat,” I said.

  “Good. And while you’re doing that, I’ll make a few phone calls and try to verify that these men are who they say they are. It won’t take long to find out if Skip Jamison is really an art director at Vance, Yellen and Drier; if Lenny Lubin really owns a business called Lubin’s Lube Jobs in Massapequa, Long Island; and if Henry Prichard is really a salesman at…Which car dealership is he with?”

  “Peterson Chevrolet,” I reminded him. “In Altoona, Pennsylvania.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That still leaves Albert Mullins though. He doesn’t have a job, as far as I know. It’ll be tough to check him out, won’t it?”

  “Maybe,” Simon acknowledged, “but we can at least confirm that he lives in Manhattan and has a weekend place in Connecticut. That is, if he’s listed in both phone directories.”

  “Hardly anyone’s listed anymore. We’re all trying to hide from those telemarketers.”

  He smiled. “I’ll give it the old college try anyway. Look, after I make the calls and you have breakfast with your friends, you’ll need to fill me in on all three of your ex-husbands. What sort of men they are; who their friends are; what they do in their spare time.”

  “I’ll tell you whatever I can,” I said, gazing at Simon with a mixture of love and gratitude. Sure, I could have made the phone calls he said he’d make, ask the questions he suggested I ask, snoop around the ship trolling for clues. I’d been on my own for most of my adult life and had managed pretty well, in spite of my “quirks.” I was a can-do person, someone who got things done, a big achiever. In the six years since my divorce, I’d supported myself, created a nice little social network, even learned how to change a flat tire. Yes, I had my moods and my fears and my loneliness, but I’d gotten along very capably, and I’d been, if not ecstatically happy, then moderately so. I certainly didn’t expect to fall in love, never gave it a thought. I had my future all planned: I would work hard at my job, take vacations with my friends, watch the Academy Awards on television, that sort of thing. But you know what? It was better now that Simon Purdys was in my life. Much better. I’d be an out-and-out liar if I said that having a man to adore, confide in, trade wet, sloppy kisses with, was anything less than fabulous, wonderful, a miracle.

  Yes, a miracle, I thought as we set about trying to prevent a murder. That’s exactly what it was.

  20

  After leaving Simon’s stateroom, I rushed back to mine, hoping to catch Pat and Jackie before they went roaming around the ship like lambs to the slaughter. Fortunately, they were still in their cabins. I suggested we all go up to the Glass Slipper café for breakfast, knowing that while I was keeping my friends occupied, Simon would be checking out Skip, Lenny, Henry, and Albert.

  “Let’s have Bloody Marys to celebrate my recovery,” Jackie said after we had forged our way through the buffet line, been seated at a table next to the kitchen (the only table left), and asked by a waiter if we wanted anything to drink. It was a busy morning in the Glass Slipper. Sensing that their vacation was winding down, many passengers had gotten up extra-early so they could pack away a nice, hearty meal, snare a lounge chair around the pool, and soak up their second-to-last day of UVA rays.

  “I think I’ll skip the Bloody Marys and have herbal tea,” I said, wanting to keep a clear head.

  “Oh, loosen up, Elaine,” said Jackie. “It won’t be as much fun unless we all get sloshed. Just think: We’ll be Three Shits to the Wind.”

  I laughed. “You two go on ahead. I’ll stay with the tea.”

  “What’s the matter? Was there a story on the news this morning about the health hazards of tomato juice?” Jackie tweaked me. It was heartening to see that she was back to her old self.

  “Actually, the story was about the piece of celery they stick in the tomato juice as a stirrer,” I countered. “According to the latest research, when you bite into a stalk, you run the risk of getting a string caught between your teeth that you can never floss out.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Pat? What about you? Want to toast me with a Bloody Mary?”

  “That would be detectable,” she replied.

  “Wrong. Vodka doesn’t stay on your breath the way scotch does,” Jackie said.

  “I think she meant delectable,” I pointed out. “Didn’t you, Pat?”

  She nodded.

  The waiter, a strapping young man with a long, dark braid, waited patiently through our back-and-forth, then wrote our beverage orders on a pad and left.

  “So,” Jackie said, turning to face me. “Let’s hear what really happened between you and Sam Peck, Elaine. Feel like talking about it now?”

  “Actually, I’m delighted to report that Sam and I”—I had to remind myself that he was still Sam to them—“have patched up our differences and are seeing each other again.”

  “Elaine! That’s wonderful news,” Pat said, clapping her hands. “He seems like such a nice man. He certainly was very kind to me the day we all went sightseeing in Puerto Rico.”

  “He is a nice man,” I agreed.

  “With a very nice ass,” Jackie chimed in. “So is it love or what?”

  “I can’t speak for him, but as I told you on the tender coming back from Isle de Swan, Jackie, I’ve never felt like this about anyone.”

  “Good God. She really has flipped out,” Jackie said, nudging Pat. “When’s the wedding?”

  I scoffed but secretly wondered the same thing, although what was really weighing on me at that moment was what sort of information Simon’s phone calls had uncovered and whether any of it would lead us to the hit man.

  I fielded a few more questions about my relationship with “Sam,” trying not to gush. Eventually, we ate breakfast and discussed our plans for our last full day at sea. There seemed to be only two things on the a
genda. Jackie had an afternoon checkup with Dr. Johansson, and Pat wanted to call Bill’s apartment to wish Lucy a happy tenth birthday.

  “I propose that the three of us spend the day together,” I said. “We can buy souvenirs, get pampered in the spa, go to the lectures, do the whole cruise ship bit. We haven’t had enough quality time on this vacation, just us Blond Mice.” The hit man wouldn’t dare strike if we stuck close to each other, I figured. There had to be security in numbers.

  “Done,” said Jackie, high-fiving me.

  “We could start with the two of you coming back to my stateroom while I call the children,” Pat suggested. “They’re probably waiting by the phone now. I’m sure Lucy is. Gosh. I can’t believe she’s ten years old today.”

  “Let’s do it,” I said, the thought of families and children and birthdays reminding me of a much simpler, safer time.

  Ever since the divorce, Bill Kovecky had lived in a rather modest (for a fancy-shmancy doctor) three-bedroom apartment in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan, having given up his more lavish place when he agreed to fork over a sizable chunk of his income in alimony and child support.

  Pat was giggly and excited at the prospect of placing her first ship-to-shore call and even more excited at the prospect of speaking to Bill, who, she assumed, would answer the phone since he had taken the week off to be with the children.

  Jackie and I sat on the bed while she gave the operator the number at Bill’s apartment.

  “Hello? Hello?” we heard her say when the call went through. “Is that you, Bill? Oh, it’s you, Dennis, sweetheart. You’re getting to be so grown up you sounded just like your father. Yes, dear. I’m calling from the ship. Yes, it’s exactly like the one on TV. Are you having a good time in New York? He took you to a hockey game? And to a museum? And to Planet Hollywood? My, that must have been fun. Honey, these calls are very expensive and I do want to speak to the other kids too. Yes, I’ll see you Sunday. I miss you bunches.”