by Elaine Viets
“Louise and I will serve the guests and watch the on-deck head. We’ll stay in touch with you by two-way radio.”
Mira showed Helen how the black radio worked and helped clip it to Helen’s belt. It felt awkward.
“You’ll also walk Mitzi, Beth’s miniature poodle.”
“On which deck?” Helen asked.
“Well, we call it walking, but Mitzi has the run of the guest area. We keep a flat of grass for her on the upper aft deck and Beth puts ‘puppy training pads’ in her stateroom bath, but Mitzi rarely uses them. If you’re lucky, she’ll use the marble in Beth’s bathroom. She prefers carpet. We have special cleaners for both.”
“Terrific,” Helen said, her heart sinking. She wasn’t even a seagoing Cinderella, condemned to kitchen drudgery. She had latrine duty.
“Is Mitzi a nice dog?” she asked.
“She never bites,” Mira said.
“That’s not an endorsement,” Helen said.
“Beth loves her,” Mira said, “but the dog is spoiled and yappy. The captain banned her from the bridge and the crew areas for safety reasons. He said Mitzi might get hurt if we stepped on her. She is underfoot when she’s on board. Be careful you don’t trip over her.”
“What are the guests like?” Helen asked. “Do they bite?”
“Pretty undemanding,” Mira said. “Ralph and Rosette are Earl’s age. Ralph belongs to an old Chicago family. He doesn’t have Earl’s business success. Rosette and Ralph have been married thirty years. She can be snobbish but she’s not rude.
“Scotty and Pepper are newly married. She’s wife number four, I think. She used to be a cocktail waitress. Scotty is about seventy and gives Pepper anything she wants, as long as she does what he says. Scotty will probably get tipsy. Pepper is maybe twenty-five. She may say something ugly to you if she’s had a fight with Scotty. She’s pretty and Scotty is jealous. They fight a lot.”
“How will I know if they’ve been fighting?” Helen asked.
“You’ll hear them,” Mira said. “We hear everything on this ship. There is no privacy.”
We hear everything, Helen thought. Will I hear the rattle of smuggled emeralds? The sound of the smuggler opening a bilge or the bosun’s locker late at night?
Mira glanced at her watch. “It’s seven twenty-eight,” she said. “You have an appointment with the captain at seven thirty. He’s a stickler for time. I’ll take you up to the bridge. You can meet the other staff later.”
Helen followed Mira up the crew mess stairs and through the galley, where the dark-haired chef was chopping a red pepper at a counter. “Hi, Suzanne,” Mira said.
Suzanne smiled a hello and waved.
Mira walked briskly along the narrow teak deck to the front of the yacht and knocked on the bridge door. “Captain?” she called. “Helen Hawthorne is here.” Mira told Helen, “I’ll leave you here. I have to go back to work.”
Helen thought the bridge looked beautifully useful. The walls and ceiling were paneled in that same honey-colored wood. Six inward-slanting windows gave panoramic views of the muddy New River and the shining white yachts in the marina. The bridge windows had giant wipers, like car windshields. Over the windows were huge built-in monitors. Under the windows were radar screens, electronics and various controls.
Smack in the middle was the pilot’s wheel in sleek steel and wood.
Captain Josiah Swingle strode through a side door in his white dress uniform with four bars on the shoulder.
“Welcome aboard,” he said. Captain Swingle sat down on an upholstered bench that was taller than a regular couch. Helen stayed standing. “Mira has explained your duties?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Helen said. “I’m hoping to catch the smuggler on this trip, but I wonder if the person has stopped.”
“Why would he?” the captain asked.
“I talked with a man who used to be an emerald smuggler. At least, I think he was. He was definitely familiar with the business. He told me a tackle box full of emeralds could be worth thousands—even hundreds of thousands—of dollars. I wonder if your smuggler made enough money and quit.”
“Smugglers never make enough money,” the captain said. “There’s no telling exactly how much he got for that box, but I doubt he made anywhere near its full value. Smugglers are fueled by greed and live for risk. This one won’t stop. I read where the price of emeralds has gone up. Even so-so stones are selling for twenty-five percent more this year.”
“Why the increase?” Helen asked.
“The rich are nervous,” he said. “The market is unstable and they’re putting their money in gold, diamonds and colored stones. If their securities tank, the stones are still worth something. If nothing else, their wives can wear them. You’ll see our guests wearing fortunes.
“We aren’t carrying a full complement of guests this time, so the smuggler will have more free time. He may grow bolder. If you don’t discover him on this trip, you’ll work the next one.”
“I’ll get him this cruise,” Helen said. If she needed an incentive, she had it: Catch the smuggler or more hard labor on the Belted Earl.
“It’s about time for me to pick up the owners and their guests at the airport,” he said.
“Let me remind you: None of the other crew knows why you’re here. This is my ship. You answer to me. If you have any suspicions about my crew, you come to me. Don’t act on your own. Catching a smuggler can get you killed. Understood?”
It was the third time today Helen had heard that warning.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
CHAPTER 19
Three black Lincoln Town Cars silently rolled through the marina, stopping in front of the Belted Earl. Dark-suited chauffeurs popped the trunk latches, then jumped out and opened the rear passenger doors on noiseless, oiled hinges.
Captain Josiah Swingle stepped out of the first car. He’d met the yacht owners and their guests when their private plane landed. With his sun-reddened skin and air of confident command, the captain was a handsome introduction to the Belted Earl.
The other men weren’t as ornamental. Two wore silk Tommy Ba-hama shirts and beige pants. The third man wore a white polo shirt and navy linen pants. Helen noticed all their pants were wrinkled—proof the fabric wasn’t adulterated with polyester.
Next, a tanned and toned blonde slid out of the first car. Helen guessed her age somewhere south of forty. Her long gauzy green caftan looked almost edible. She wore a savage gold necklace set with emerald nuggets. More emeralds dangled from her ears. Her outfit was outlandish and otherworldly. Helen couldn’t guess the designer, but the clothes and jewelry shrieked money.
This must be Beth, the former model married to Earl Briggs.
Beth’s dramatic entrance was spoiled by the yapping white furball she cradled like a baby. Mitzi, the miniature poodle, Helen decided. The dog had a green bow in her curly white hair and a collar of dime-sized emeralds.
Beth took the arm of a portly fellow with a majestic belly and a noble forehead. Winged black eyebrows underpinned that great expanse of brow. Earl Briggs, the yacht owner.
Beth didn’t walk in her high-heeled sandals. She strutted. The world was her runway. Earl looked proud to plod beside his exotic spouse. He wore the satisfied smile of a man who had everything.
Beth and Earl walked arm in arm up to the captain. “Evening, Captain,” Earl said in a flat Midwestern accent.
“Yap!” said the poodle, then erupted in nonstop barks.
Earl fought to drown out the noisy dog. “I assume we’re leaving at nine tonight?”
“I wanted to talk to you about that, sir,” Josiah said, over Mitzi’s yips and yaps. “We may want to delay our departure by a few hours.”
“Why?” Earl asked. “It’s a beautiful night.” The eyebrows took wing and a frown flitted across his wide brow.
“Yap!” Mitzi said.
The frown deepened.
“Yip! Yap!” Mitzi barked louder. Helen saw the dog’s pink tongue
and tiny sharp teeth. The poodle wore enough jewels to pay the crew for a month.
“It’s perfectly calm,” Earl said. His own calm seemed to be receding fast.
“Yip!” The poodle’s yaps grew shriller. They were needles in Helen’s eardrums.
Earl winced slightly, then asked, “So what’s the problem, Captain?” The frown dug deep furrows in his brow.
Mitzi’s yaps grew into poodle pandemonium. Earl turned to his wife and said calmly, “Beth, keep that damned dog quiet before I shut it up permanently.”
Beth backed away slightly and cuddled the poodle in her arms. “Sh! We must be quiet, baby,” she told Mitzi. “I know you had a difficult flight, but your daddy had a hard day, too. He makes the money for you and your daddy’s tired.”
“I am not the father of a damned dog!” Earl howled. Beth flinched.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Earl said. “Can’t you keep her quiet until I finish this conversation?”
Beth nodded.
“Now, Captain,” Earl commanded, “explain why we can’t leave at nine tonight.”
“We’re expecting rough seas, sir,” Josiah said. “They’re due to wind, not a storm system. Once we leave the coast of Florida, we’ll be in four- to six-foot waves. You may want to wait until the sea is completely laid down.”
“Is it safe to cruise?” Earl asked.
“It’s safe, but it could be uncomfortable,” Josiah said. “This trip will be similar to the last cruise back from Atlantis. If we wait five hours until the waves calm down, we’ll have a smooth crossing. We’ll still get into port tomorrow—about two o’clock in the afternoon.”
“And if we leave at nine tonight?” Earl asked.
“We’ll make it about ten in the morning,” Josiah said.
“We’ll lose half a day’s gambling if we wait,” Earl said. He turned to his guests. “What do you think?”
“Hell, I’m no coward.” Thin and dry as beef jerky, this man had thick unnaturally white hair and a gin-burned face.
“Nor I,” said the older woman next to him. She was a match for her mate: so thin she looked freeze-dried. Her wrinkles and iron gray hair were proudly untouched. Her deck shoes and navy-striped Lilly Pulitzer pants and shirt seemed practical after Beth’s unearthly outfit. Helen guessed they were Ralph and Rosette, Earl’s society friends.
“I’m no wuss. I want to start gambling.” The third man’s dome was aggressively bare and wreathed in cigar smoke, like clouds around a mountaintop. “As long as the scotch holds out, we’ll be fine.”
That must be Scotty, Helen thought. The fluffy blonde clutching his arm was his young wife, Pepper. She whimpered and her pink ruffles trembled. “I don’t like being seasick,” she said. Her face was hidden in waves of golden hair. “Can’t we wait a little?” Pepper kissed Scotty’s large, hairy ear. “Please?”
“Now, kitten, be good,” Scotty said, “and I’ll buy you something pretty at Atlantis.”
“Emeralds?” Her eyes glittered with greed. “I like Beth’s emeralds. Even her dog has bigger emeralds than me.”
“Then we’ll get you the biggest emeralds we can find,” Scotty said, as if he were promising a child ice cream. “Once we get to the Bahamas, you can have lots of nice shopping. The captain and I won’t let anything bad happen.”
Helen expected him to pat Pepper on her head.
“Well, it’s unanimous, Captain,” Earl said. “Everyone wants to leave at nine tonight. If it’s safe to cross, we don’t care about a little discomfort.”
The men didn’t, anyway.
“Yes, sir,” the captain said, his face expressionless. Helen suspected Josiah was a crafty poker player.
Matt, the bosun, and Sam, the deckhand, stood ready to carry the guests’ luggage into the yacht. Matt was generically handsome, a catalog model with neat brown hair and regular features.
Sam was eye candy. His white uniform didn’t hide his ripped chest and bulging calves, and it definitely set off his bronze tan. He had a roguish smile and sun-bleached hair.
Helen couldn’t take her eyes off Sam. Neither could Pepper. Helen saw the fluffy blonde eye him like a starving woman staring at a steak. Her hips had a little extra swing when she pattered past Sam in her pink stilettos.
The rest of the crew lined up like a nautical receiving line, starting with Carl, the first mate. Andrei, the Bulgarian first engineer, had dark hair and swarthy, pitted skin. Dick, the second engineer, was a stair step down in rank and height. Chef Suzanne Schoomer, looking lost outside her galley, towered above him. Helen stood beside the chef.
The chief stewardess, Mira, had put on a new smile to greet the guests. This one looked forced. She balanced a tray of Baccarat champagne flutes. Louise, the second stewardess, was so small Helen wondered how she could support the heavy tray of salmon mousse appetizers.
The owner Earl nodded at the crew and lumbered inside. Beth stopped in front of Helen and said, “You’re the new stewardess. Here. Mitzi needs a walk.” She plopped the squirming poodle in Helen’s arms. The dog yapped and scratched Helen’s arm, trying to escape.
Helen hung on. If she lost that dog, she’d lose her job. “But—” She started to say she was supposed to unpack the guests’ luggage, then stopped. The owner outranked Mira.
The chief stewardess intervened. “Helen has to unpack the guests’ luggage,” she reminded the owner’s wife.
“Oh, the girls can unpack,” Beth said. “They have to put away their jewelry, anyway. I’ll take them downstairs. Helen can help them after she walks Mitzi.” She pulled an emerald-studded leash out of her purse and hooked it to the dog’s collar. Mitzi whimpered.
“Go on,” she said, shooing Helen down the gangplank. “Walk Mitzi before we cruise. Then give her a bowl of bottled water.” The dog whined and circled Helen’s legs, tangling her in the leash.
“We’ve laid in Evian for her,” Mira said.
“She doesn’t drink Evian now,” Beth said. “It upsets her tummy. She prefers Fiji water. I hope you have some on hand.”
“We have six kinds of bottled water,” Mira said, “including Veen, 10 Thousand BC and Bling H2O. Paris Hilton gives Tinkerbell Bling.”
“That little tart would,” Beth said. “Probably got a free case. Send someone out to buy Fiji. Send him. He’s just standing there.” She pointed at Andrei. His olive skin went a shade darker. The mighty engineer was not supposed to be an errand boy, but he started obediently toward the parking lot.
“Suzanne, did you fix Mitzi’s food?” Beth asked.
“I baked the organic peanut butter treats she likes,” the chef said, “and made her organic chicken and rice.”
If I hate cleaning up after a dog, Helen thought, I wonder how our chef feels about fixing canine cuisine.
“Here, doggy,” Helen said. She wasn’t a dog lover and Mitzi knew it. The poodle stayed rooted to the teak deck. Helen gave up coaxing Mitzi, picked her up and carried her off the boat.
On the dock, Mitzi anointed the pilings while Helen said, “Good dog.” When she got home, she’d give Thumbs an extra treat for being an uncomplicated cat.
She wished she’d brought along her BlackBerry. She was worried her sister would get a call from the blackmailer and panic.
“Hey!” a man said. “Should you be walking alone with thirty thousand dollars’ worth of emeralds?”
Helen jumped and turned around. Andrei, the first engineer and Fiji fetcher, swaggered up to her as if he were the hottest man on the yacht. He had a cheesy seventies handsomeness. What did he use on his hair? Engine oil?
Andrei’s small brown eyes looked shifty, but Helen wondered if she was influenced by the captain’s suspicion that he might be the smuggler.
He held out a calloused hand. “Andrei,” he said. “I was busy when Mira showed you around. Now I have to be an errand boy for this mutt. I should wring her neck and take the collar and leash. She’s wearing round-cut emeralds. That’s an uncommon cut.”
“It is?”
Helen asked. “Why?”
“The classic emerald cut yields a bigger stone with fewer inclusions.”
Inclusions. Helen had heard that word before—from Max the smuggler. She decided to see how much Andrei knew. “What are inclusions?”
“Flaws,” Andrei said. “Emeralds aren’t as hard as diamonds. Too many inclusions can destroy the value.” He crouched down to examine Mitzi’s collar. The dog growled at him.
“Mitzi has ten round-cut emeralds on her collar and six more on the leash. The colors are fantastic and the polish is excellent. I’d say they’re worth about two thousand dollars a carat.”
“You know a lot about emeralds,” Helen said. No wonder the captain was suspicious.
“I get around.” Andrei flashed his white teeth. “What about you?”
“I live in Fort Lauderdale,” Helen said, ignoring his double entendre.
“I mean, wanna hook up? She doesn’t know how long it takes me to buy Fiji water, and it’s going to be a long, hard night. I could give you something long and hard before we cruise.”
What a sleaze, Helen thought. “Not interested. I have someone.”
“Bet he’s not as good as me.” He thrust his hips forward.
Ew, Helen thought. “I’m busy,” she said.
“Watching a dog pee?” he asked.
“Better than hanging with a hound,” Helen said. She picked up Mitzi and carried her back toward the yacht. Why did Andrei have to look and sound like a classic villain?
It made this job tougher.
CHAPTER 20
Helen’s two-way radio crackled as she was smoothing the duvet in the Paradise stateroom.
“Main salon head needs attention,” Mira said.
“Roger that,” Helen said.
Again? The yacht hadn’t even left port and this was the third time Helen had cleaned that head. Pepper had used it again. Helen recognized her candy pink lipstick on the discarded tissues. The flossy blonde was not a good sailor. She would earn those emeralds.