The Angels Will Not Care

by John Straley

  “Traci Lord,” I corrected.

  “Yeah, right. Traci Lord. No. There was no one on the manifest by that name.”

  “Come on, Sonny, who was in Acapulco 800?”

  Sonny stopped pedaling, turned, and swung around sidesaddle on the stationary bike. He kind of looked like Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo. He wiped his forehead with the bottom of his sweatshirt.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Cecil. There was no one assigned Acapulco 800. That stateroom is hired out as an extra to that travel group—the Inconnue or whatever.”

  “Sonny, you have one less passenger today. Get it? There’s been a death in the family. Someone won’t be at her place at second seating or whenever she was eating, and you’re telling me there is no real record of her?”

  “What I’m telling you is that I don’t have any record of her. Did she sign up for a shore excursion? I don’t think so. Did she ask me for escort services? No. How about did she sign up for exercise class or weight lifting? No, I don’t think so. Maybe that’s because she was too busy dying of AIDS.”

  Sonny’s complexion was reddening as a result, I assumed, of peevishness.

  “Sonny, she had to have a passport. She must show up on the manifest.”

  “You have to talk to the ship’s officers. They maintain the manifest. The first mate would have written a report on the death. He reviews the doctor’s report, writes one of his own, and shows them both to the captain. They will advise me of any changes to the manifest later. If at all. They run the boat, I run the vacations. Get it?”

  “Sonny, I tried to talk to the first mate. He acted like I didn’t exist. He assumed I was a passenger. He brushed me off like lint. Get me an introduction, will ya?”

  Sonny was now doing curls with the thirty-five-pound free weights. “Cecil, I told you we never told the boat company about hiring you. We couldn’t. I mean it looks like we’re spying on our own business partners . . .”

  “Which you are . . .” I sat down on the seat of the bench press machine and unwrapped a stick of gum.

  “Well yeah, but you knew that going in. The worst of it is I think they are up to something!” Sonny toweled his forehead.

  “They?” I asked him.

  “Empire Shipping.” He started puffing. “The first mate and the captain. They seem like they are agitated. The captain had a car waiting for him when we arrived here. That’s unusual. I don’t know, Cecil, they may be doing their own investigation, as far as I know. But that’s it—I don’t know. I suppose that’s why we hired you.”

  The pedals of the stationary bike squeaked and I didn’t say a word as I felt the full force of Sonny’s superiority.

  “Anyway, I can’t get you an introduction,” he puffed on. “What you need is a copy of the report.”

  “The first mate’s report?”

  “Right. Officially they’re called fatality reports but they are referred to as Moonlight Bays.”

  “Come on.”

  “Really.” Sonny shook his head in all solemnity. “Cecil, we can’t go around talking about people dying. Talk about putting a damper on the trip. Also, you just don’t know how fast rumors can travel and get distorted on board ship. So we use the code and we file reports. You need the Moonlight Bay on this girl who died in Acapulco 800.”

  “So you can say over the public address system or phone system . . . ?” I was trying to grasp this.

  “Exactly.” Sonny was breathing hard but still pulling the weights to his chest. I was chewing gum in time with him. “I’ve already told you this: We say ‘Report to Moonlight Bay, Acapulco 800’ and everybody knows what to do and our passengers stay relaxed.”

  It was beginning to dawn on me that few things in life were as important to Sonny as the relaxation of his passengers. I chewed my gum and watched him pump iron and as he pedaled I was wondering if there was any place to get something to eat on board the ship.

  “So this extra room that the tour group has, they use it for sex or what?”

  “I don’t know.” Sonny grunted. “I never pried into what they did there.”

  “Well, some old doll was pumping one of your sailors there the other morning.”

  Sonny dropped the weights. “What!” He stared at me just as Felix had. “What did you say, Cecil?”

  “There was a passenger. A woman, she was down in room 800, you know, Sonny, she was making the beast with two backs with one of the guys from the boat crew.” I tried to illustrate with some hand gestures.

  “Are you absolutely sure it was a crew member?” Sonny was more agitated than I had ever seen him.

  I took a step back. “I don’t know, Sonny. He looked like a crew person. He had his white coveralls around his knees. I didn’t get that much of a look. They were not expecting company. What’s the problem?”

  Sonny shook his head from side to side while he wiped himself down again. “There are three hundred crew members on this boat. Besides my staff and the people working the tables and in the bar, have you seen any crew members.”

  I thought for a minute, remembering the scenes I had observed on the ship. There were drinkers and blue-haired ladies, professors and sick people, but no one that looked like they were working for a living. “No,” I said. “I guess I never thought about it, but, no, I’ve never seen any crew members.”

  “Crew are expressly forbidden to have any social contact with the passengers. None. They are not supposed to be on deck the entire trip. They can go out on the working decks after dark. They can go ashore. But other than that, they are supposed to stay at their station or in Freetown.”

  “Freetown?” I offered Sonny a stick of gum but he declined.

  Sonny stood up and walked to a diagram of the ship on the wall. In every public room on the Westward there was a diagram of the decks with red dots with the words you are here. Sonny pointed. “Around the sides of the hull are the ABC decks, you know—Acapulco, Bermuda and all the rest—this is where the passengers are. The crew lives here in the center of the ship. They have their kitchens, their showers, and a rec room all on the inside. This is Freetown. Passengers are not allowed there, and the crew are not allowed on the ABC decks. If they break this rule, the whole trip is deadweighted.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning the crew person is sent home immediately and he forfeits his pay for the cruise. Nothing for the whole trip. And nothing with this company ever again.”

  “Seems kind of harsh. I mean, it all looked consensual. Possibly even romantic.”

  Sonny held up his hand as if he were a judge who had heard it all. “Believe me,” he said, “I don’t doubt that for a minute. I know what my passengers are like. Some of them want it all. But there has to be a strict separation. There are social considerations. These crewmen come from very different backgrounds from our passengers. I mean, most of them could buy a house back home with just the jewelry some of the passengers wear. We can’t have them sitting at the bar together. We’ve never had a serious theft on board and that is because we don’t put temptation in their way.”

  “That’s white of you, Sonny.”

  “Don’t judge people you know nothing about, Younger. There’s more than just that, there are the health concerns. We have crew members from Thailand, from . . . Haiti, for gosh sakes. Do you know what happened on one of our competitors’ ships?”

  I shook my head no, but for some reason I had a feeling I was still going to find out.

  “A passenger made a claim that he had contracted a sexually transmitted disease from a crewman.” Sonny rolled his eyes. “I mean, it was herpes, for gosh sakes, but he filed suit and their next season’s receipts went down the well. It’s like finding a rat in the soup, you know what I mean?”

  The ship’s horn blared out from the stack and bounced back from the mountains. The mooring lines were slipped from their massive cle
ats and winched on board. The ship pulled away from Ketchikan in the pouring rain. The fantail bar was in full swing. The regulars who seemed to have staked their turf when we set sail were laughing and toasting their luck as the tug released the ship. The blonde woman in the silk pants stood out a foot from the eaves of the covered bar and let the rain blubber down her face. Then she tossed her hair back and laughed.

  In the Great Circle Lounge, Toddy was setting the timer on his camera and running around to have his picture taken with Margie & the Navigators. He snapped two pictures, trying to get the timer to work. A librarian from Rock Island, Illinois, on her way to the bar, showed Todd the right timer switch. He thanked her, then threw the switch and ran around by the bandstand where the Navigators were hanging around after their in-port rehearsal. The shutter clicked before Todd made it to the saxophone player, who still appeared to be deeply stoned.

  The Great Circle Lounge spanned the width of the ship. On each side were floor-to-ceiling windows covered with thick shades for the performances. The shades were open now as the Westward headed north up Clarence Strait, along the western edge of Revillagigedo Island. Several people sat in the low-backed couches and chairs swiveled toward the window. Three women with binoculars slung over their necks sat at attention. One of them still had her sou’wester rain hat on. They all scanned the shoreline with their field glasses.

  On the opposite side, Alicia and Carol’s mother was sprawled in front of the huge plate-glass window. There was a plate of shrimp and an empty margarita glass on the table next to her. She was slouched down in the chair with a spy novel sprawled on her chest. By the bar Carol and Alicia were laughing and joking with one of the barmen. He was making chains of origami cranes that the girls wore in their hair. Carol spun and laughed between the chairs. Carol’s mother looked up sleepily and saw her daughters laughing and then closed her eyes again. “This is good,” she muttered.

  In the farthest corner Rosalind sat with her legs tucked under her with her sketch pad laid out on her lap. She sat in a pool of milky sunlight and each time she looked up her eyes were dull and unfocused. When she saw me she brightened and smiled.

  “Hey!” she said and sat up straight, covering her sketch pad with her elbows. “You find anything out?”

  “No.” I sat down across from her. One of the birdwatchers snapped her binoculars to her eyes and pointed; the others followed suit. “How are you doing?” I asked Rosalind, and brushed her hair from her face, then felt her forehead with the tips of my fingers.

  She blushed, and touched my hand. “I’m okay. I felt a little queasy down there. I went for a walk in Ketchikan. I’m great now.” She smiled at me.

  I turned away.

  “Is anybody talking about that girl we saw in the doctor’s office?” I asked her quickly.

  “No. It’s weird. I haven’t told anybody what I saw but I just asked around about the woman in Acapulco 800 and no one knows a thing. They say the room is empty.”

  “Her travel club books it.”

  “Kingfisher!” all three of the ladies said at once.

  Rosalind smiled at them and looked back at me. “Yeah, well, the crew has been tearing that room apart. There has been a lot of activity all day. I tried to get in to see the doctor myself. You know, just to check in . . .” Her eyes wandered toward the windows.

  “Raven . . . raven . . .” one of the birders murmured without much enthusiasm.

  “The doctor didn’t have much time. He was very busy,” Rosalind said absently. “There are lots of sick people on this boat. Have you noticed that?”

  “Yeah. I have,” I said intelligently.

  Rosalind shivered. She touched her throat as if checking her glands. “Gives me the creeps. I don’t know. I’ve been feeling kind of crummy all day.”

  “You look too good to be sick,” I deadpanned.

  She looked down, embarrassed, her face reddening again. “Cecil,” she said seriously in a way that made me cringe. “Cecil, you are attached, aren’t you?”

  “Attached?” I said and for some terrible reason all I could think of was the severed hand in the ice bucket.

  “Yeah, I guess I am attached,” I said absently.

  “I think that’s terrific.” Rosalind brightened. “I met your friend. Jane Marie. I was thinking of going on one of those Charade teams. But you know, I just don’t know. She seems really nice. Smart and thin, and pretty and everything.”

  “All that’s true,” I said and then, “But she does not have strange and interesting eyes and I don’t think she knows squat about Angels.” I touched her hand and she laughed.

  I looked over and Todd was taking another photo of Margie and chatting with her as she shifted from one foot to another obviously wanting to leave.

  “Oystercatcher!” one of the birders shouted and then pumped the air with her fist. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” The other two slumped slightly in disappointment.

  I turned back to Rosalind. “How are the Angels coming?”

  “Oh,” she wrinkled up her nose and looked distastefully down at her sketch pad. “I’m being bad, I’m afraid.”

  I moved closer to her and she wriggled in discomfort but she lifted her elbows off the pad. As I leaned into her I felt the shadow of her body’s heat. I could smell her hair and the trace of lemon soap on her skin.

  On the paper she had drawn an angel with its wings pinned against the pages of a book. A giant woman in glasses reached toward the angel with a probe as if it were a biological specimen. The drawing had some intricate details: structures of wing feathers, the folds of the robe, the hinge of the eyeglasses. Other details were left out, or cartoonish. The angel appeared to be asleep, its head bowed to one side, its expression vague. Behind it dozens and dozens of other angel specimens were tacked into display cases.

  “Eagle! Eagle! Eagle!” All three birders were on their feet. They danced on their thin legs, swiveling their butts around, while they trained their binoculars on the point. Beyond the window an eagle settled on top of a broken spruce tree. The bird tucked her wings and thrust her chest out as she scanned the water with the air of a haughty predator.

  I felt Rosalind put her hand into mine. “Have you ever seen anything like it?” She sighed.

  I watched the eagle’s perch disappear past the stern. “Never one exactly like that,” I answered and looked down at my shoes.

  She squeezed my hand and bent her head closer to mine. “I have something to ask you, Cecil.”

  My chest tightened. I kept ahold of her hand.

  “Later in the week there is going to be a dance featuring seventies music. I . . . I was wondering . . .”

  I closed my eyes because I didn’t even want to think of the possible ending for her sentence.

  “I was wondering if you could still, I don’t know, if you could still flirt with me a little bit.”

  She buried her head in her hands. “Just a little bit. Even though I know you are attached. It would help, you know, make it so I wouldn’t look like I’m so, I don’t know, pathetic.”

  “You are not pathetic.” I took her hands away from her face. “And I would be happy to flirt with you if it would help.”

  “You could even act heartbroken, Cecil.” Her voice brightened. “It’s kind of like chumming for sharks. I just need some blood in the water.”

  “So if I hang around acting interested and heartbroken, you think this will help with your chances of meeting available men?” I asked just to clarify.

  “Oh you bet it would,” she said excitedly. “I’ve been on other cruises. I’ve seen it work. But . . .” And she paused. “There’s another thing. Can I pencil you in for that dance towards the end of the trip? The seventies night. I really want to go and I need some backup if things don’t pan out with someone.”

  “I’d be honored.” I said it without much conviction.

  In my u
niverse there are drinkers and dancers. And the two should never intermingle. I have always been with the drinkers, self-conscious introverts who crack wise about the music and sneer at the dancers while at the same time they are consumed with envy. Dancers love their bodies and open themselves to the music. Gravity is my enemy. It conspires with my body to make me look stupid on the dance floor. Why did she have to ask me to dance?

  “I’d be happy to go to the dance,” I said and never took my eyes off the carpet.

  “Hey, you guys. What’s up?” Jane Marie said over my shoulder.

  I was holding on to the tips of Rosalind’s fingers. She smiled up.

  “Hi, Janie. Cecil has agreed to let me break his heart,” Rosalind chirped.

  “Some trick.” Jane Marie slumped down next to us. “Did he agree to go to the dance with you?” she asked and Rosalind nodded happily.

  “I told you he would. Don’t get your hopes up, although he is perfect for the job.” Jane Marie put her hand on my knee. “With Cecil as your date you should be motivated to find a real date.” Then she looked toward me, smiling.

  “Cecil, I’m glad you made it back on board.” Jane Marie’s eyes were arched and I think she was showing real concern. “I was worried you’d get hooked up with some of your buddies in Ketchikan.”

  Rosalind said, “You know people in Ketchikan! How exciting! What do they do there?”

  For some reason she seemed so sweet I didn’t really want to tell her about Felix.

  “They’re in transportation,” I said, then dropped her hand and stood up to face Jane Marie.

  “I’m going to the bridge,” Jane Marie said. “I’ve been given bridge privileges. I’m going to talk with the captain about where the best spots to see marine mammals may be. I can take you along, Cecil, if you don’t do anything dumb.” Jane Marie finished her sentence staring at the beaming Rosalind.

  “Go. Go,” Rosalind said, beaming. “It will be really neat. Maybe you’ll see some whales!” She was so excited she could hardly contain herself. “I have to go down to the clinic anyway. I’ll see you later. Bye bye.”