Val & Pals Boxed Set: Volumes 1,2 & the Prequel (Val & Pals Humorous Mystery Series)

by Margaret Lashley

  Clarice wasn’t in the cabin when I got back. I hoped that meant she was feeling better. She still hadn’t returned after I’d taken a long, hot shower and donned a fresh set of clothes. I left again to check my emails. I hadn’t bothered for a couple of days, for two reasons. First, shipboard Internet cost about $300 a minute. Second, I still hadn’t decided what to say to Friedrich.

  The Internet Café was empty when I arrived. Not even one surly teenager was skulking about. I picked a cubicle by the window and logged on. The email Friedrich had sent two days ago glared at me. I clicked on it and read it again.

  Dear Val,

  I tried to forget, but my heart aches for you. Please meet me at the port in Naples on Friday. I have something I want to give you.

  Friedrich

  I was out of time. Friday was tomorrow. I hit the reply button and froze. Should I or shouldn’t I? I thought about deceitful Markus and two-timing Vinny. Friedrich was freaking Prince Charming compared to them. He might be the one. Or at least, the best I could do. If I didn’t go, I’d never know. I took a deep breath and blew it out. I didn’t want to sound too desperate…or frightened. I typed.

  Hi Friedrich,

  That sounds like fun. Meet you at 8:30 at the dock.

  Val

  My finger hovered over the “send” button like a mosquito over a naked butt cheek.

  “Hey, it’s you!”

  The voice startled me. My finger jabbed send. I turned around. It was the teenager who’d helped me a few days ago.

  “Hi, Charlotte.”

  “Hi. Hope I didn’t scare you.”

  “No. It’s all good.”

  “Are you done now?”

  “What?”

  “With the internet.”

  “Oh…yes, I guess.”

  “Then log off. Quick!”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  I did as I was instructed. A message popped up informing me that my cabin account would be charged $18.37 for this internet session.

  “Wow!” Charlotte exclaimed. “You coulda bought a pizza for that! I’m glad I’m on our family plan. If I did what you just did, I’d be in big trouble.”

  ***

  “So, are you girls going to catch Vinny tonight?”

  For a second, I wondered how Berta knew of our diabolical plan to shake down Vinny and Markus after dinner. Then I realized she was probably just asking if we were going to the show.

  “I’m planning on it,” I replied.

  “Oh yes! Wouldn’t miss it!” Clarice said too cheerfully.

  Yep. If everything went according to Clarice’s and my plans, both Vinny Cannoli and Markus the Manipulator were going down in flames tonight.

  Clarice and I took our seats at the dining table alongside Berta.

  “You two look like you’re feeling better.”

  “And she looks thinner, too. It’s just not fair,” I complained.

  Clarice shook her head and put a hand to her tummy. “Let me tell you, Val, this is not the way anyone wants to lose weight.”

  “I know. I had a bout with it, too. But my stomach still looks like a basketball.”

  “You’re crazy. You look fabulous. Doesn’t she, Berta?”

  Berta’s eyes had been scanning the room. “Uh? Yes. You two look fabulous. I like the sparkles, Val.”

  I had on a loose-fitting, short dress made of dark-blue material that glittered like sequins.

  “This old thing? It’s my camouflage dress. You can’t make out anything under all this shiny.”

  “Well, you both look fine,” Berta said. “And I’m glad you’re all dressed up. I’ve got a treat for you kids. I swiped an invitation to the Kaptain’s Klub cocktail party tonight. It’s right after dinner.”

  Berta handed Clarice an envelope. She opened it and pulled out a gold-lined square of cream-colored paper.

  “No offense, Berta,” I said. “But who are we going meet there? Everyone on board is old enough to –”

  Clarice smiled and waved the card at me. “It says here, ‘free drinks!’”

  “Well, in that case, I’m in.”

  Berta laughed. “I’m not.”

  “You’re not coming?” Clarice asked.

  “No. I’ve got something to do. I’ll meet you girls at the show.”

  ***

  After dinner, Clarice and I took our fancy, gold-lined invitation and swaggered smugly down to the Kaptain’s Klub’s exclusive cocktail party. I sucked in my melon-belly, opened the swanky wooden door, and sauntered in with Clarice. Let the party begin!

  Electronic candlelight cast a bluish-yellow glow over the room. Across one wall, a full liquor bar was lined with people perched on high-top stools, buzzing with tipsy conversation. The rest of the club was dotted with clusters of three or four upholstered chairs encircling tiny tables of dark-stained wood. The Klub looked like a typical cocktail lounge, but still, something seemed off. I blinked twice and looked around again. It hit me. In the dark, the guests’ deeply tanned skin, bleached-white teeth and silver hair gave them the appearance of…film negatives.

  “This is weird,” I said to Clarice.

  I turned to see her reaction, but she was already bent over the bar, ordering drinks while dirty old men ogled her rear-end. Another inch shorter and she’d have offered them an embarrassing Southern exposure.

  I blinked again and scanned the room for a second time. That’s when I saw him. Markus. He was dressed in a neat, charcoal-colored suit, white shirt and a crisp red tie. He held a drink tray in his hand, and was chatting up a woman whose face I couldn’t see.

  “Got you a Tanqueray and tonic,” said Clarice. “The old man at the bar called it a TNT! Funny, huh? Actually, he said, ‘Here’s a TNT for a bombshell.’”

  I took the drink from Clarice and sneered.

  “Leave it to a man to turn a compliment into an act of war.”

  “Gee, Val. Lighten up.”

  Why do people say that? It never works.

  Clarice elbowed me, spilling my drink. “Let’s have some fun!

  “You mean like those two?”

  I raised my drink in the direction of Markus. He was busy chumming it up with a woman in a cozy corner for two. Clarice’s mouth fell open. She dropped her glass of champagne. It bounced silently on the carpet and spewed white foam three feet into the air like a miniature volcano with rabies.

  The two-timing cabin steward must have felt her burning stare. He glanced up from flirting, gave Clarice a quick, dead look in the eyes, and returned his attention to the other woman. She was somewhere between fifty and sixty, and pushing two-hundred pounds. Why would he ditch Clarice for that lady?

  Before I could say a word, Clarice made a beeline for Markus. I scrambled to catch up to her.

  “Hello Markus,” she sneered.

  “Hello, Ms….?”

  I had to hand it to him. This guy was a pro at being a jerk-off. I think Clarice blanched. I think she half-believed she had the wrong guy. But no, there was his blasted nametag. Markus. Markus the magnificent, manipulating man-child.

  “It’s Whittle, Markus. Clarice Whittle. You lying piece of crap!”

  “Excuse me, Madame.” Markus genteelly kissed the older woman’s hand. “Uno momento, per favore.”

  He got up and led Clarice by the elbow to an empty corner. I followed, hot on their heels like a reporter from the National Enquirer.

  “What’s the deal, Markus?”

  “The deal is fifty dollars,” he said coldly.

  “What!?”

  “You heard me. Fifty dollars. That’s my rate. I gave you a sample. Then the second time you didn’t pay me. Look lady. If I don’t get paid, you don’t get laid.”

  “What! I never!”

  “No, of course not,” Markus said smugly.

  Clarice Whittle blew her top. She snatched Markus by the hair on the top of his arrogant head and marched him, arms flailing, over to the group of ladies who’d been admiring him from th
e corner.

  “See this douchebag, ladies?” Clarice wiggled her pinky finger in the air. “Not even this big. A totally lousy lay. Fifty dollars? He’s not worth fifty cents!”

  Clarice let go of Marcus. He jumped back and sneered at her, then slid back into his sleazy gigolo face. He smiled at the ladies, but they weren’t buying it anymore. They turned their noses up and scattered like buckshot across the room.

  Clarice turned to me and grinned like a devil on the loose.

  “One down. One to go.”

  ***

  It was Vinny Cannoli’s turn at bat.

  We skulked around in the hallway near Berta’s cabin. An older lady in a beautiful silver cocktail dress walked by, looked Clarice and me up and down, and shot us a dirty look. She had an envelope in her hand. I realized I was still holding the envelope with the Kaptain’s Klub invitation.

  The elegant woman slipped her envelope under the door of Berta’s and Vinny’s cabin. She passed by us again and muttered, “How are we supposed to have a chance when you young trollops keep giving it away?”

  Her comment got me fired up. Clarice and I were catches. Why would we settle for a scrawny old two-timer like Vinny Cannoli?

  I was getting ready to bang on the cabin door when it opened. Out stepped Vinny in his top hat, tuxedo and spats, just as I’d hoped. I slapped the invitation in Clarice’s hand and pounced in front of him like a ninja in heels.

  “How could you treat Berta that way, you dried up old dirt bag!” I yelled in his face.

  Vinny flinched and put up his arm, as if to ward off a blow.

  “She deserves better than you, you philandering old piss-wad!” Clarice yelled.

  Vinny put his arm down and looked me in the eye. He started to speak, then stopped.

  “All those invitations from other women?” I sneered. “Do you deny it, you two-timing asshole?”

  Vinny studied us both for a second. He blew out a breath and spoke.

  “Aww, flapdoodle, kids. It’s me, Berta.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I was too jumpy to sit still, much less try to eat breakfast. I was supposed to meet Friedrich soon, and had worried myself silly over the possibility of having a repeat performance of my comic-tragic Italian opera, The Shit-and-Run Skank of Sorrento. It was just as well I didn’t have an appetite. Another millionth of an inch and I wouldn’t have been able to button my jeans. On the bright side, if I happened to start bleeding internally while in Naples, I was already wearing a denim tourniquet.

  Clarice, on the other hand, was gloating and enjoying her breakfast of champions. By the time Berta joined us, she’d already downed two apple Danish and a pot of tea, and was just warming up.

  “Good morning, Vinny,” I said to Berta as she slid into the chair beside me. “Going tranny today?”

  Berta grinned. “Hiya, kids.”

  Our waiter appeared.

  “Crappuccino?” Berta asked. Clarice and I nodded. “Make that three, please.”

  The waiter lumbered off.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “What’s with the whole Vinny charade?”

  “I didn’t have time to explain last night,” Berta began. “I had to get to my show. But like I told you before, I work on the ship so I can travel for free. I’ve been doing it for years. I usually do the lecture circuit, but it was already taken for this cruise. All they had left was a spot in entertainment. I used to do an improv act back in my college days. So I came up with this shtick on the spot.”

  “That’s pretty brave, Berta,” Clarice said.

  “More than that – it’s genius! With the Vinny Cannoli gig, I get to travel incognito. Nobody knows me. That means nobody’s hassling me after the show. And I don’t have to keep up that nicey-nice polite bullshit for the customers. As far as anyone else knows, I’m just that old bat Berta in cabin…”

  Berta hesitated and looked around before whispering, “three-three-two.”

  “I get it,” I said. “But what’s up with the cloak and dagger act? The secret cabin number?”

  “And all the notes slipped under your cabin door?” Clarice asked.

  Berta sighed. “That’s the shit end of this shtick, kids. I have to watch my back with the jealous old ladies.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “You see, I get a better audience if they think I’m – Vinny, I mean – is single. I get a bonus for packing the house. If the old broads found out that Vinny was sharing a cabin with me, I could lose customers – not to mention get stabbed to death with the daggers in their eyes.”

  “But what about the envelopes?” Clarice asked.

  “Okay. Stick with me here. So, the old broads think Vinny’s single. But they never see him wondering around the ship. One day, some old lady spots Vinny going into a cabin. The news spreads like wildfire over the old biddy grapevine, and these gals start slipping love letters under the door for the old geezer. ‘Let me buy you dinner.’ ‘Have a drink with me.’ Blah blah blah. I tell you, girls. Times must be tough if women have to fight over a washed-up old Vaudeville act like Cannoli.”

  “But he makes me laugh,” I sighed wistfully.

  Berta cracked a wry grin. “Yeah. I guess there is that.”

  The waiter arrived with our cappuccinos. “And what would the ladies like for breakfast?”

  “I’ll have the eggs Benedict, half a grapefruit and a stack of pancakes,” Clarice said.

  “You know, that sounds good,” Berta said. “Make it two.”

  “Nothing for me,” I said.

  The waiter looked stunned. He recovered his composure and said, “Very good.”

  Berta glanced around at the plump patrons eating after-breakfast parfaits.

  “I’m guessing he’s never heard that line before,” she laughed. “What’s up with you, kid? Still not feeling well?”

  “No. I’m fine. It’s just that…well…I’m meeting Friedrich in an hour. I’m too nervous to eat.”

  “Oh.”

  There was that blasted syllable again. The one that said everything and nothing at all.

  “You don’t approve?”

  “Not for me to say, kid. But if you don’t mind, I think Vinny wants to weigh in.”

  “Really? What are you, some kind of comedian?”

  Berta scrunched her eyebrows together and lowered her voice an octave. “Yes ma’am, I am. So, tell me, young lady. What do women and brick sidewalks have in common?”

  I shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “Lay ‘em good once and you can walk all over them for years.”

  Clarice hooted with laughter. I winced. Vinny’s joke had hit way too close to home.

  ***

  Sung-Li looked pissed and bored and sullen as she swiped my ship card and wished me a nice day with all the cheerful insincerity of a late-night telemarketer. I walked down the gangplank and along the chain-link fence separating the port from the city streets. I’d replied so late to Friedrich’s email, I wondered if he was going to show up. The thought made my stomach flop. At the exit gate I spied a blond man with a square jaw, thin lips and a set of sea-blue eyes.

  The expression on Friedrich’s face was a strange mixture of pleasure and pain. The corner of his mouth didn’t curled upward, but his eyes registered hopefulness tinged with fear.

  “Val. You came.”

  “Of course I came. I said I would.”

  Friedrich gave me a short nod of acknowledgment, but didn’t seem convinced. I wondered who, in his past, had not kept their word.

  “Goot. Shall we walk?”

  Friedrich fumblingly grabbed my hand and we set off down the cobblestone street. It felt awkward to see him again. But good, too. Familiar. Still, I didn’t know what to say. I guess he felt the same. Soon, both of our palms were drenched in sweat. What were we doing here?

  We walked down a busy sidewalk lined with bakeries, florist shops, butchers and green grocers. Laundry flapped in the breeze high above our heads, strung out on
lines between apartment buildings build centuries ago. Cats lazed on terraces filled with bicycles and potted plants. And, true to form, Italians honked their horns and drove like madmen along the street.

  “Have you hunger, Val?”

  I was ravenous. But my jeans were so tight, I was afraid to sit down, much less eat. I shrugged.

  “Napoli…uh…Naples is the home of pizza,” Friedrich said, stumbling for words. “That’s what they claim. But I think the truth is that pizza was invented in America.”

  I stared in a shop window displaying large, round pies covered in cheese, pepperoni and mushrooms. My stomach didn’t give a flip where pizza originated, as long as it ended up in my mouth.

  “Let’s get a pizza here,” I said.

  Friedrich nodded and showed me his half-smile.

  We chose a table for three outside on the busy sidewalk. Friedrich slung his backpack on the chair between us and went to join the small crowd at the counter to order. In a sea of dark-haired, suave Italians, I’d almost forgotten Friedrich’s sturdy, Nordic charm. His hair was the color of sand, the perfect complement to his sea-blue eyes. If his nose had been a bit smaller and his lips a bit fuller, he would have been an absolute hunk – and out of my league.

  Compared to the Italians, Friedrich’s body language was less animated. He was stiffer, and more reserved. He spoke their language and appeared confident, but his self-assurance came off more like protective armor than a true personality trait. Still, he looked triumphant when he returned holding two glasses of red wine.

  “Cheers,” he said, handing me the wine. He pointed at his left eye with his left index finger, prompting me to remember the German rule.

  “Ah yes. I must look into your eyes, or –

  “Seven years bad sex!” we said simultaneously. The joke broke the awkward tension between us. We both took a sip of wine, our eyes properly locked. I thought it was funny, but Friedrich appeared to take the whole toasting thing quite seriously. I was about to say something when he seemed to read my thoughts.

  “I have something for you.” Friedrich dug into his backpack.