Bitter End (Seychelle Sullivan #3)

by Kling, Christine

  I didn’t know if he could really do that, but clearly he was pissed. I decided it probably wouldn’t be wise to test him. Besides, he was standing in front of me, his arms crossed on his chest, the phone under his armpit emitting a tinny-sounding, “Hello? Richard? Hello?”

  “Jesus, I just wanted to look around a little. Okay.” I lifted my hands in the universal sign of surrender, and when I backed out of the office, I stepped onto the toes of the stewardess, standing right behind me.

  “You,” he said, pointing a finger at my nose, “should not use the Lord’s name in vain.” He turned to the petite woman. “Anna, get her outta here.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I just wanted to ask if you knew Nick Pontus, that guy who got killed. I knew his wife when we were kids.”

  The captain took a step back and eased himself into the helmsman’s seat as though he were moving in slow motion. He squinted at me and spoke slowly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I tried to keep my voice light, dumb lost tourist that I was. “Yeah, I lived on the same street as his wife when we were kids. We were, like, best friends.”

  “I’ve never seen you before,” he said. “My sister’s never mentioned anyone like you.”

  “Molly’s your sister?” I crinkled the skin between my eyebrows. “I didn’t know she had a brother.”

  He dropped his head backward and sighed loudly up at the overhead. It occurred to me for a moment that his neck might not be strong enough to lift that big head back up again. When his face did rise back into view, his skin was tight and red. His voice seemed to burst out of his mouth.

  “You moron! Molly was Nick’s ex-wife. Now get out of here before I call the— Wait a minute. I know you. You’re on that tugboat.”

  “By the way, Captain. I really liked that song you sang. Did you write that?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Yes,” he said, dragging the word out almost like a question.

  “So, that was original. The lyrics were very moving. You know, you have a real talent.”

  He nodded like that was a given. “I’m going to be cutting my first CD soon. Do you think I should include that one?”

  Anna stepped around me and said, “Captain, it’s getting late.”

  “Yeah, right. You need to get off the bridge,” he said, like he’d just remembered who I was.

  When Miss Size Six tried to grab my arm again, I yanked it out of her grip and said, “I know my way out.”

  I was still laughing when I sat down next to Mike.

  “What so funny?”

  I told him my story about my encounter with the captain. “Guy doesn’t seem too bright,” I said.

  Mike massaged his forehead with two fingers. “Remind me to give you a few pointers next time we go out undercover. Like, the first thing you should not do is walk into the heart of their operation and announce that you’re there. Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, Seychelle, what made you think that was a good idea?”

  “Uh, I don’t know, Mike.” I felt like an idiot. Of course, he was right. Now we had lost the advantage that anonymity might have given us.

  “Well, do you think you could go over there to the bar and get us a couple of beers without telling the bartender who you grew up next door to?”

  Glad of the chance to get up and do something, I said, “Sure.”

  When we were passing alongside the Coast Guard station, I told Mike about the captain’s eyes, about how Zale had said he was an intermittently reformed alcoholic. We were making our turn to head out through Port Everglades inlet when Mike said, “Thanks a lot. Thanks for waiting until we’re on our way out into the Gulf Stream to tell me that the captain is an addict of some sort in addition to being an asshole.” He still hadn’t forgiven me for my stupidity. I hoped I could make up for it somehow before the night was over. I hated it when Mike was mad at me.

  The musician finished playing his rendition of the song “Kung Fu Fighting” and announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, the casino will be opening in approximately twenty minutes.” He punched at his computer keyboard then and launched into his version of the Commodores’ “Brick House.”

  “What do you think about TropiCruz’s customers?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t paid much attention.”

  “Change that,” he said.

  Mike was right again. I had been looking at the boat, memorizing the layout, mentally marking the doors that were labeled restricted so I could go back later and explore, but there was probably just as much to be learned from the people onboard.

  Right off, I decided that the majority could be put into one of two groups—first-timers who had come to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary, and regulars. The first-timers were in couples or groups of couples, dressed in carefully chosen Florida tropical prints—what they thought of as cruising clothes. The regulars weren’t dressed up or smiling. They could have been sitting on the train going to work. They sat slouched over, reading the paper or smoking a cigarette, and they were either singles or couples. Regulars did not travel in packs. Their only movement other than smoking or drinking was checking their watches. They knew the timing of the trip out. They knew how long it took to reach the three-mile limit and exactly when the casino would open.

  The ship’s decks started a slow roll when we cleared the breakwaters and began to feel the swell. Some of the first-timers giggled nervously at the motion, and the younger girls clutched at their boyfriends’ or husbands’ arms. Mike and I watched as the red and green lights of the pilot boat overtook our little ship and headed out toward an incoming freighter. Once clear of the land, there was a fairly brisk breeze out of the east-southeast, and although the night had seemed almost balmy for February back at the dock, out here the wind was already trying to freeze-dry my nose.

  The music man announced that it was only ten minutes until the casino would open, and all the regulars rose in unison and began shuffling toward the stairs.

  “Shall we?” Mike asked, offering me his arm.

  I hoped that meant we had made up. I linked my arm in his and we started after the herd. “So, you like gambling?” I asked him.

  “Sure, don’t you?”

  “Never done it. It’s never interested me.”

  “Why, Seychelle Sullivan, do you mean to tell me you’re a casino virgin?”

  “That I am, Officer.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to bust your cherry on the dice tonight.”

  “Oh, you do have such a way with words, Mike.”

  XVI

  I stood at Mike’s elbow nursing a plain Coke I’d ordered over half an hour ago, shaking my head when Mike ordered his second rum and Coke of the evening. This was going to be a five-hour cruise, and I wanted to stay clearheaded. I’d already goofed up once this evening, and Molly deserved better than that.

  No matter how fascinated Mike was with these games, I could neither understand what was going on at the craps table nor enjoy it. Sometimes they gave him more chips and sometimes they took them away, and I think I could have figured it out if I had cared to, but that essential element—interest—was missing. My mind kept wandering, thinking about other things that seemed so much more important to me than the little numbers on the dice. I left Mike to his fascination with dice and wandered over to the blackjack table.

  Now this was a game I could understand. Not that I wanted to play, but at least I could add up the cards and understand why somebody won. The table I was watching had six players sitting on high bar stools, and on the other side the dealer a dark-skinned black woman nearly as tall as me, stood smiling, making it all look so easy. She stood with perfect posture, her long neck swooping up to the bun perched high on the back of her head. Her nametag read LaShon, and she filled out the white tuxedo shirt beneath her black bow tie near to bursting. That may have accounted for the fact that her table was populated by five men and only one woman, but her joking manner and helpful attitude made her the sort of voluptuous woman that other women li
ked. A rarity, indeed.

  All the blackjack dealers had their backs to the center of the room, and in the middle, the tall thin man with the walkie-talkie—the one I’d seen earlier on the dock— wandered from dealer to dealer, watching them. He glanced upward a couple of times, and I noticed that the ceiling was polka-dotted with little smoke-colored domes: the eyes in the sky—video security.

  I didn’t know if his interest in me stemmed from the fact that I was watching him and not gambling, or if he had heard from Captain Richard that I was a person of interest. But his eyes kept darting my way, then moving on so that we never really stared into each other’s eyes. I felt like I was always just catching him looking away.

  There were only six blackjack tables and one roulette wheel in the center of that little casino. The two craps tables were against the outside walls. Windows ran the length of the port side of the casino, but it was difficult to see out at night. Through the slats in the mini blinds, with my face pressed close to the glass, I could see a deck walkway outside that was off-limits to passengers. The aft bulkhead inside the casino was lined with slot machines, and in the center of the room, rows of machines covered all the space not taken up by the gaming tables. I wandered the floor, checking out the other dealers as well as LaShon, and I calculated that she was making about twice as much in tips as the others. I saw over a hundred dollars in chips go into her kitty in the time I stood by her table.

  After I’d been standing there about forty-five minutes, observing the game and learning as LaShon gently taught a neophyte lady how to play, one of the players got up and left the table. LaShon invited me to play with a look and a nod toward the empty chair. I shook my head to decline. She shrugged her shoulders, and a man with a belly that reminded me of Maddy’s slid into the seat.

  My oldest brother is four years older than me, and he would have been in his element on that ship. Maddy loved to gamble. Unfortunately, he didn’t often win, and his wife, Jane, had grown adamant that if he didn’t go to Gamblers Anonymous meetings and stay away from the track, she would divorce him and take their son and daughter with her. I must admit, though—having babysat my niece and nephew several times through the years, I tended to think that that might not be such a bad deal.

  “Thompson, take a break.” I heard a man’s deep voice say the name, and it jerked me out of my memories. I swung my head around the room, trying to figure out who had spoken. What with the dinging and clanging of the slots and the strains of pop Muzak on the PA system, it was difficult to tell where the voice had come from. From the corner of my vision I noticed an unusual movement back at the blackjack table, and I turned to look. Dealers don’t usually make big movements with their arms. It’s all in their hands. LaShon was balancing a covered chip tray on her hip and patting the back of a stocky man with African-American features and skin as light as mine. His white shirt was pulled so tight at the shoulders, I feared LaShon’s pats might tear it open. When the man greeted the players at the table, his voice was the same deep bass I had heard earlier. It took several seconds for me to put it together. I’d had my mind so fixed on the Thompson I thought I was looking for, that I had a little trouble shifting gears at first. LaShon was Thompson.

  She was standing on the far side of the pit area, exchanging a few words with the skinny security chief. They were both tall, so I had little trouble watching them as I wormed my way through the crowd. I wanted to cut LaShon off before she disappeared through one of the off-limits doors. The security chief’s shoulders bowed forward and his chest was so concave, his tie seemed to dangle and swing in midair as he stepped from one foot to the other in a nervous little dance. He was clearly talking to LaShon, since no one else was around, but he never once looked right at her. His eyes constantly flitted all over the floor, jumping from one dealer to the next.

  “Excuse me, pardon me,” I said as I pushed my way around through the onlookers. Though I was on the receiving end of several harsh glances and whispered curse words, I made it to her just as the security man moved off to take up his post by the blackjack tables.

  “Miss Thompson?”

  She turned round and smiled, and it was genuine. She was in a plastic business, but her friendliness was real. I didn’t even know her and I liked her already.

  “I’m a friend of Molly Pontus. I’d like to talk to you if you have a minute.”

  She glanced over my shoulder to where the security guy with his walkie-talkie was, but the look on her face never flickered with concern. Suddenly she laughed and reached out and patted me on the back as though congratulating me on something. As she leaned in close, she said in a barely audible whisper “Meet me in the top deck ladies’ room in five minutes.” Then she pulled back, saying aloud, “Nice seeing you again. You take care now,” and she turned and disappeared through the door.

  I squeezed my way through the crowds back over to where Mike was still standing at the craps table. I felt the eyes of the security chief following me, and when I looked his way once, I saw that he was holding the black walkie-talkie to his mouth and speaking into it. I nudged Mike in the side with my elbow. “Hey, how you doing?”

  “Great. I’m up by two hundred.”

  I tried unsuccessfully to whistle. “Wow, I’m impressed,” I said, and I was. I didn’t think anybody ever won on these gambling ships.

  “Umm-hmm,” he said as he watched the dice roll down the felt.

  “Mike?”

  “Umm-hmm,” he said again. He wasn’t even really aware that I was standing next to him.

  I grabbed hold of his upper arm. “Mike. You’ve got to listen to me for a minute.” He swung his head around, blinked a couple of times, and made a concentrated effort to focus. I got closer and put my mouth next to his ear. “Listen, I’ve found Thompson.”

  “Where is he?”

  My lips were nearly touching his ear. “Actually, he’s a she. I’m going up to the top deck to meet her in a couple of minutes. I just thought you should know.”

  He made a surprised face, then nodded. “Got it,” he said, turning back to his game.

  The women’s restroom was at the top of the stairs on the left. Before entering, I walked up to the glass door that led to the “off-limits” bridge deck. I cupped my hands to the glass and looked through to see if anyone was outside on the wing decks. Though I could see the glow of the instrument lights around the doorway to the bridge, there was no one in sight on the deck.

  I was standing at the sink washing my hands when she came in. There were four stalls and when she glanced at them, I said, “I already checked. There’s nobody here.”

  “Yeah, that’s why I chose this head. Top deck’s usually empty as long as the casino is open. There are restrooms down there and the gamblers don’t want to get too far away from Lady Luck.”

  “Yeah, it’s weird. It’s like they’re possessed.”

  “We don’t often see people on this ship who aren’t afflicted. I notice you haven’t played a single nickel.”

  “Might as well come in here and flush my money down the toilet.”

  Her laughter danced up and down the musical scale, and it popped into my head that she might do better singing in real casinos than working the tables here. I noticed then that she wore almost no makeup, only a touch of lipstick, and no jewelry save for tiny gold balls in her earlobes. The gold contrasted beautifully with her dark skin. Not that she needed makeup or jewelry. There was a cleanness to her beauty, something that all the cigarette smoke and alcohol and general seediness of the ship could not touch. That was undoubtedly part of what made her so successful at the tables.

  “What did you want to see me about?” she asked. Again, she’d cut clean to the point. I leaned on the sink and looked at her in the mirror. “I’ve known Molly Pontus since we were kids. Last night they arrested her for Nick’s murder.”

  “I saw that on the news,” she said. “I didn’t know Molly well, but she always struck me as a decent woman.”

  I thought t
hat was a good way to put it. Decent. That described Molly, and decent folks weren’t guilty of murder.

  “Miss Thompson,” I started.

  “Oh, please, call me LaShon.” She waved a hand in the air with a dancer’s elegance.

  “Okay. I was talking to Molly and Nick’s son today, and he told me that you and Nick were good friends, that you really knew the operation on this ship.”

  She shrugged her shoulders, and the hint of a smile played around her mouth, tucking in the skin beneath her high cheekbones. “Nick found out that I’m a bit of a techie. A geek, really. I grew up messing with computers. I’ve always got to know how things work.”

  “Computers? What does that have to do with this ship?”

  She threw back her head and sang out that lilting laughter again.

  “Are you kidding? Everything, my friend—everything, from the engine room to the bridge, but especially in the casino. This ship runs on computers. What do you think those slots are? They’re nothing but video games.”

  “I guess I hadn’t really thought about it. Yeah. I was still thinking of the old one-armed bandits. But they’re all electronic now. So what did you do for Nick with your geek skills?”

  “He wanted me to give up dealing and work in maintenance. I said to him, ‘Are you nuts? For what pittance you pay those guys?’ ”

  “Sounds like Nick would have paid you well as a computer consultant if he wanted you that bad.”

  “You know, much as I admired him in some ways, Nick Pontus was a cheap SOB. Not like these guys who come aboard, get all liquored up, and then start winning. I can make more in tips than most computer consultants make on salary. And I don’t have to worry about getting caught poking around in something somebody don’t want known.”

  I started to ask “Like what?” when we heard footsteps along the outside corridor. We both turned to the sink and started washing our hands as the door to the bathroom swung inward and Miss Size Six from the bridge walked in. She nodded at LaShon before she entered the stall, and LaShon smiled back saying, “Hi, Anna.” The woman’s eyes passed right over me as though I did not exist.