“It wasn’t her,” Ingrid said pointedly. Was this gorgeous woman now able to read minds? “It wasn’t Garbo.”
“Not unless she’s eaten half the crew since being on board.” I belched. “The real Harriett Brown is a heifer.”
“I guess that’s it then,” Nick said. “I win.”
“The hell you say,” I said. “I’m just getting warmed up.”
I was bluffing, of course. Without a lead, I was back to square one. Negative one. Once the storm blew over, the entire crew would be called upon to find the freak with a fetish for photographing naked fatties. It was a sure bet the British merchant marine frowned upon such behavior among their paying passengers, let alone stowaways. I’d be in the brig by daybreak.
“You need a disguise,” Ingrid said.
Ingrid’s complicity made me blush. She must have seen the shock register on my face, because she shot me a sexy smile. Nick, however, wasn’t smiling. He was too busy turning green. And not with envy. This amused me. It shouldn’t have. I sat right next to him.
“What kind of disguise did you have in mind?” I asked.
Ingrid looked around the bar, for what, I had no idea. She turned back to me, practically a lit light bulb above her head. Inspiration illuminated her features.
“I’ll be back.” And with that she got up and walked across the room toward the kitchen.
I loved watching Ingrid walk away almost as much as watching her walk toward me. Not that I considered myself an ass man, per se. The sum of Ingrid’s parts added up to more than tits and ass in my book. I’d never thought of having a partner in crime before, let alone a dame. She was my intellectual equal, if not smarter. Ingrid made me rethink being solo. This alone made her damn near irresistible. Even if she wasn’t on the up and up.
Nick was another story. We stared at each other in nauseated silence. No amount of chin wagging was going to change the contempt I now held for him and I was confident he felt the same for me. Maybe if we talked, however, it would take my mind off my own stomach, which I hadn’t been on speaking terms with since the storm blew in.
“Nice weather we’re having,” I said, ever the sarcastic bastard.
“You said it,” Nick managed through clenched teeth.
His entire body clenched. A burst of adrenaline covered my own face in flop sweat. I took a shallow breath, but the storm had sucked all the air out of the room. I looked around, desperate for subject matter. I saw a plaque on the wall behind our table, above the fireplace. Etched in bronze relief was the Latin phrase: “Si Deus Pro Nobis, Quis Contra Nos.”
“What’s that?” I cocked my head toward the fireplace.
“The ship’s motto,” was Nick’s clipped reply.
I could tell he had other things on his mind at the moment, which was exactly why I asked.
“My Latin’s a little rusty,” I said.
“If God is with us, who is against us?” he replied without ever turning his head.
Who, indeed? The ship pitched violently to starboard and glassware and furniture went crashing with it. The ship was being tossed around like some sea monster’s bath toy. I took up residence in Ingrid’s empty seat at the opposite end of the table, the one Nick and I now held on to for dear life. I made my best effort not to look scared. If God was with us on this trip, I’d hate to think of what would happen if He wasn’t.
A wave of nausea hit me. In my fevered imagination it was the same massive wave that broadsided the ship. I looked across the room and saw a young porter in a spotless white uniform with a tray of chafing dishes emerging from the kitchen entrance. The kid used the bolted-down tables of the salon to scale the forty-five degree pitch the floor had become. He looked like Buster Keaton silently running up a wall in one of his daring comic skits. I couldn’t help but smile at the seemingly gravity-defying act.
“Hey,” I said to Nick, “you see that?”
Nick hung above me as if suspended on a seesaw. From his precarious perch he looked like a schoolboy stranded atop a teeter-totter. At first, I thought he was smiling in agreement. Then I realized he was trying desperately not to vomit. His lips curled back at the sides into a menacing grimace. Nick freed a hand to cover his mouth. Ingrid emerged from the kitchen in time to see two streams of bright yellow puke shooting out of his nose right onto my chest.
“Oh my,” she said.
“Oh my?” I raised my hands in exasperation. I looked down at the warm bile running down my shirt. “Oh my” didn’t even begin to cover it.
A mortified expression formed on Nick’s face. He mouthed his condolences to my suit vest. A little late, if you asked me. The ship righted herself, and the pendulum effect left me momentarily catching air above Nick. The combination of motion and putrid smell of Nick’s upchuck wafting up my nostrils turned out to be a lethal mixture. Ingrid backed away as I opened my mouth and covered Nick’s suit. We looked over at her like twin newborns covered in afterbirth.
“Don’t move,” she said. “I’ll get something to clean—” and disappeared into the kitchen.
Nick and I did as we were told as the ship rocked back into a level pitch. Spent by our little game of you-show-me-your-insides-and-I’ll-show-you-mine, I doubt either of us had the energy to spit, let alone navigate out of the room. The storm abated for the moment, but somehow I knew it wasn’t finished with us yet. God, Mother Nature, or the Devil himself was having far too much fun watching us mortals squirm to call it quits just yet.
Nick retired to his cabin while Ingrid and I went back to hers. I found there was nothing quite like throwing up in front of a woman to destroy the mood. It was just as well. I had other things to attend to before we could once again engage in sexual congress. Ingrid seemed to be fine with this philosophy.
She gave me a reassuring smile while she drew me another hot bath. This time I shed my soiled clothing without having to be told. There was also no argument from me when she rolled up her sleeves and lathered the sponge. I crawled in, the water warm and inviting. The storm outside raged.
Ingrid sent my suit out to be cleaned and pressed. Again. But this time she had more than a robe and a warm bed for me to slither into. I toweled myself off while she proudly presented me with a spotless white, pressed porter’s uniform exactly like the one the young man in the salon was wearing.
“What’s that?” I pointed at it like a five-year-old.
“What does it look like?” she said, coaxing me like the sexy school teacher every adolescent boy fantasized spending detention with.
“It looks like a porter’s uniform,” I said, only too happy to state the obvious.
“Then that’s what it is,” she confirmed and turned the corners of her warm full lips into a sinister little smile.
I had to give her credit. It was ingenious. Ingenious and insane. I was already up to my neck in trouble with the local authorities. Impersonating a crew member would definitely push my head below the surface. One could argue that I was already a goner. Sinking fast into a dark, wet abyss between two continents whose inhabitants would have my head once I reached terra firma. Toes and Bernie waited for me on one side of the Atlantic, the Swedish authorities on the other side. I was doomed. So why not go out with a bang?
“Will it fit?” I asked and looked at the shirt collar the same as if it were a hangman’s noose.
“Try it on,” she said.
The shirt fit, all right. But the pants and jacket came up more than a little short. Ingrid stared at me and tried to suppress a laugh.
“Go ahead and laugh.” I looked down at my exposed ankles. “Anything to brighten your day.”
I was all dressed up and nowhere to go. But that was the real surprise Ingrid had in store for me. She produced a piece of paper and held it out to me with both hands. Scribbled on the parchment was a Second-Class Suite number, 313B.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Ingrid giggled like a little girl with a new puppy. Her high cheekbones glistened in the light, and her eyes squ
inted with glee. I imagined her in ponytails, standing in front of a blackboard, proudly exhibiting to a classroom of juvenile delinquents a gold star she’d just received. She held her breath and waited.
“You just found out your twin sister is on board,” I offered. “And you want me to see who’s the better kisser.”
Ingrid pursed her lips and shook her head no. She moved the paper closer to me, as if that would jar mental aptitude back into positive numbers. I felt thicker, more sluggish than usual. I squinted at the numbers in mock concentration.
“Sorry, sugar.” I stalled. “I got nothing.”
Ingrid pouted in disgust. She was tiring of my utter lack of perception. She raised her right eyebrow at me in disapproval. Her come-hither look had turned into a go-wither glare. I’d seen that look once before. A third time and I’d find myself turned out into the storm. So I threw caution to the wind and went for broke.
“You found Garbo,” I said, knowing full well I was wrong.
Ingrid jumped up and down with abandon. She let out a laugh and wrapped her arms around me. Squeezed me so hard I felt my eyes bulge. If her exaltation at discovering Garbo’s whereabouts aboard ship wasn’t enough to bowl me over, jumping into my lap while I was standing up nearly sent us both flying backwards.
“But,” I said, while Ingrid clung to me like a double-breasted suit, “how did you find out?”
“The porter, Lars,” she gushed. “You know, the one you saw leave the salon. He’s been taking our most expensive caviar and Champagne to room 313B all night. To her. In room 313B.”
The image of the gravity-defying porter scaling up the wall of the Salon immediately came to mind. That his destination was a second-class cabin intrigued me. But would it be enough to risk another fat lady in a tub? Or, even worse, a fat man? I shuddered at the thought as Ingrid climbed down off of me.
“Did he tell you,” I inquired, the journalist in me wanting to verify her source, “it was Garbo?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “Swedes know how to keep secrets. But I’m sure of it.”
Something didn’t sound right. Usually when someone said they were sure of something, it meant they were trying to convince themselves of it as much as you. Also, I hadn’t had much experience with Swedes, but was pretty sure they didn’t refer to themselves as such. Still, I let it pass. I was running out of time, and my underwear was bunching up very nicely in my butt-crack due to the two-sizes-too-small porter’s pants.
“So,” I said, “what’s the plan?”
Ingrid’s peepers opened wide like cat’s-eye marbles. The kitty cat was on the hunt and loving it. But catching a tigress like Garbo by the tail was a dangerous proposition. It was good sport, provided you could sneak up on her while her claws were pointed the other way. My experience with the movie star in the men’s bathroom taught me to proceed with the utmost caution. Unless I wanted my hair parted with a wrench again, which I didn’t.
“Next time she orders something,” she said, her index finger brought to her lips in thought, “I’ll distract Lars, and you can take it to her.”
“That easy, huh?” I was skeptical.
“Why not?” Ingrid’s finger pointed at me like a gun.
I didn’t have a comeback. Her logic was impeccable. Provided an order did come in and she could distract Lars. Looking at her, I knew that wouldn’t be a problem for Ingrid. The kid would have to be dead from the waist down or queer as a three-dollar bill not to respond to her natural charms. She could stop a train in its tracks just by batting her eyelashes.
“There’s only one problem,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“The plan is perfect,” I assured her. “But it implicates you directly.”
Ingrid considered this wrinkle. She would be aiding and abetting a known pervert. I was already in hot water. She had merely been on the sidelines with soap and sponge, cleaning me up after every inning in this ridiculous game. To move ahead, she’d have to batter up. I knew she knew I was right.
“I’ve got it,” she said. The light bulb above her head shone even brighter this time.
“I’m all ears,” I said.
“We don’t have to wait for an order.” Ingrid struck her teacher pose again. Class was back in session.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” she explained. “It will be a gift, courtesy of the captain.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Ingrid that I had tried this line before, to disastrous effect. Still, it had gotten me in the door, hadn’t it? The wrong door, but still a door. Then again, I feared my earlier success, as it were, was due to the very fact Garbo wasn’t inside.
The real Garbo would never accept unsolicited gifts, for the very same reason paparazzo like me would hatch such an insipid scheme. Garbo wouldn’t have known the term paparazzi or that it literally meant “buzzing insects,” for it wouldn’t be coined until decades later. Still, she had a sixth sense about us pests and could hear us coming a mile off. There were no flies on Garbo.
“It won’t work,” I said. “Trust me.”
Ingrid looked at me, dejected. She sat down on the settee in her bedroom and pouted like before. She was having too much fun, and I had just poured a gallon of cold seawater on her parade. I would have loved to have sat down next to her and consoled her, but feared my pants would split. As it was, they had stopped circulation to my groin. I feared a couple more hours in them and my ability to father a child would be a non issue.
“That’s it,” Ingrid said. “That’s the answer.”
I looked down at her, unsure of what the question was.
“The next time she orders,” she explained, “you’ll simply beat Lars to her door.”
Ingrid smiled with glee. I mimicked her expression. She could tell I wasn’t following her. What I perceived as a minor variation made all the difference to her.
“She’ll just think it’s typical Swedish hospitality,” she said. “Fast and courteous service.”
“How am I supposed to beat the kid there?” The image of Lars the super-porter Up-Up-and-Awaying in the upended salon played in my mind for a second time.
“Because you’ll already be there, silly,” she said. “It’s just meant to get you in the door. No one’s saying the order you bring her has to be right.”
“Wow,” I said. “That could work.”
Ecstatic, Ingrid jumped up and embraced me so hard I thought I was going to pop a button. She had built the plank. Now all I had to do was walk out onto the end of it and jump off.
In hindsight, it made sense that Garbo would have chosen a Second-Class Suite instead of First Class. For the simple reason that idiots like me would never think she’d stoop to traveling any other way but the best. But Garbo had grown up in poverty. Little Greta Gustavsson had helped her family make the rent by working as a lather girl in a barber shop. I couldn’t imagine Garbo, even as a child, lathering strange men’s faces for their daily shave. But poverty had a way of making you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily ever do otherwise.
I contemplated this whole sorry state of affairs while I waited in the shadows of the Second-Class Hallway. The only good thing was that the storm had all but petered out. A semblance of normality had resumed amidships. People once again came out of their cabins and headed off this way and that. And I was dressed up like a clown waiting for my cue to debase myself yet again. I breathed a little easier when a couple emerged from the suite next to Garbo’s and walked passed me as if I didn’t exist.
Ingrid knew from experience what it took to get noticed, or not. She had been right about disguising me as the help. I adjusted myself in my porter’s pants and shook my legs as if in preparation for a footrace. All I needed to do was get into that cabin, photograph the most beautiful woman who ever lived, and get out. All in a day’s work. Within the hour, I’d be back in my own trousers, toasting to success with Ingrid. Or lose the pants altogether and do a couple victory rounds in bed instead.
Ingrid
appeared at the end of the hallway and gave me the good ole American thumbs up, the prearranged sign to go ahead. As an accomplice, she was aces. I wished I could be so confident of my own abilities. Sure, I’d flown high with Charles Lindbergh as my co-pilot, but Garbo was the hottest star on the planet, and one shot of her would rocket my career into high orbit. It was just a matter of getting the butterflies in my stomach to fly in formation long enough to get the shot.
I swallowed hard and lifted a tray populated by a chilled bottle of Champagne and several chafing dishes, one of which contained my camera. I walked across the hallway to Suite 313B. I told myself, a couple quick flashbulbs blown, and I’d be out in a flash. If I actually ever got into Garbo’s suite. The fat lady in the tub screamed in my head. The ludicrousness of our plan truly hit home as I knocked on the door.
“Room service,” I said.
I waited, my hand already cramping from holding the tray. I still had time to turn and flee. Then I heard both Ingrid and Nick’s voices in my head urging me to stand my ground. But it was the thought of my toes that really stiffened my resolve. Without Garbo’s picture, I’d never be able to go wee-wee-wee all the way home ever again. Stand and deliver, Moseley. If not for yourself, do it for your ten little Indians.
“Enter.”
The word seeped through the cherry wood door. I couldn’t tell whether man or woman had uttered the instruction. Genderless and indistinct in accent as the response was, I’d been given the green light. It was Garbo or bust.
I reached down with my free hand and tried the door handle. It turned clockwise, and the door opened with an audible click. I envisioned the captain and several of his officers lying in wait on the other side. With a net. After all I’d been through to get to this point just seemed too damn easy. Surely there was a catch, and I was all but caught.
I entered a darkened room and shut the door behind me. I could barely make out any features in the room furnishings. The sole illumination came from the porthole, where a silvery sliver of moonlight streamed in, intermittently obstructed by leftover cloud cover blowing by. I imagined the Norse gods were sending me Morse code, signaling, “Get the fuck out while you still can.” Of course, I ignored the warning and blindly continued forward.
Looking for Garbo Page 9