High Seas Drifter (Cruise Confidential 4)

by Brian David Bruns

  Though dubbed a funicular, the ride more resembled a ski lift. But not just any ski lift, oh no. Those little cages didn't just soar above groves of chestnuts like other cable cars; they continued far out of sight, valley after peak after valley after peak. The stretches between ridges were isolated and lonely: just you in a tiny, open cage taking in the panorama. Or, rather, just me and Cosmina.

  The cage itself was incredibly small—so small, in fact, that two 'American-sized' adults would not fit inside. Good thing Cosmina was dinky! Both facing outward, our bodies were pressed back-to-back. More accurately, cheek-to-cheek. Though supported by secured bottoms, we felt anything but stable. The cage bobbed and bounced merrily on the wires some thirty feet above the ground. I loved heights and thought it a delight, somewhat in the vein of an amusement park ride. There was little chance of us getting shaken out of the cage, but every surge felt like the cage itself was flinging off the track.

  That's when Cosmina admitted she was terrified of heights.

  I thought she was joking, maybe playing some sort of game for attention. One look confirmed she was on the verge of panic. She had turned to face inwards, both feet thrust outward and butt pressed against the cage to fully brace herself. She gripped the rail so tightly that her arms actually wavered under the strain.

  "What the hell, Cosi," I said, looking at her pale face. "You really are scared of heights! So that's why you gave me the helicopter tour in Monaco!"

  "Oh my God," she moaned. Her body swayed. The wind gusted, pushing us about. The cables jiggled up and down the mountain. Cosmina made a weird, squeaking noise and gripped ever tighter.

  "Stop tensing," I commanded. "You're going to pass out if you keep your joints locked like that. You're in a cage, Cosi, you couldn't get out of this if you tried. You've got to relax."

  Panting with eyes squeezed shut, Cosmina croaked, "Get my phone... out of my purse."

  I pawed for her purse. Retrieving her cell phone was a difficult operation, considering our hips were locked together and there was no room for elbows. It was probably the most intimate I'd ever been with somebody while fully clothed. As a groping teen I hadn't the imagination to top this simple telephone retrieval. The tiny cage jostled along and we continued to play Twister in the sky. Finally I found the item and offered it to her. Because her eyes remained firmly shut, I tapped the phone on her body. But she would not release her death grip from the rail.

  "Hold it up," she commanded through gritted teeth. I complied.

  Peeling back one eyelid as little as necessary to see, Cosmina took in the situation. Finally she instructed me on the order of buttons to push. Again, I complied, finally finding the number for her mother—in Romania. When the phone began ringing, I pressed it to her ear. Soon Cosmina was yammering in lightning-fast Romanian. She spoke so quickly I understood nothing of what she said. Well, almost nothing. One word kept being repeated over and over, like a mantra. Pula.

  "Okay," Cosmina finally said, indicating I could hang up. She took a deep, shaky breath, opened her eyes to look into mine. Hers were deadly earnest. Mine were amused.

  "Did I really hear you say what I thought you said?" I asked, rather cryptically. "Pula... to your mother?"

  "It was her advice," Cosmina clarified with puffed breaths. "To take my mind off it."

  "But pula means—"

  "A nice big dick," Cosmina confirmed. She was nothing if not her mother's daughter. Cosmina suddenly slid downward, collapsing to sit on the bottom with crossed legs. The maneuver quite literally pressed her face into my crotch. I hastily sat down, too. The floor of the cage was too small for us to both actually sit, so we squirmed and wiggled until fully entwined with each other. There was simply no other option.

  "This is absurd," I said. "Why did you come up here if you're so scared of heights?"

  "I wanted to talk to you about your Romanian woman," she answered carefully. "Now you can't get away."

  "What, what, what?" I whined. "I'm tired of the whole thing."

  Was that ever true. I hated talking about Bianca with Cosmina. I couldn't even remember how the conversations went because I never really knew how things stood. At several points I recalled telling Cosmina that Bianca and I were done. Until Cannes, I hadn't actually believed it was over. The ending had been a long time coming, yet sudden all the same. Cosmina called me on it.

  "From the beginning you said it was over," Cosmina accused. "You made a big deal about being done with Romanian women. Yet you were still all bubbly and moony when talking about her. So it wasn't over, even though you told me it was. Three months go by and you started seeing her again, in Messina, in Cannes. But now you act different. Now you don't talk about her. So is it over, or what?"

  "I hadn't realized all that," I admitted. I was never a good poker player, and Cosmina read me like a book. She knew damn good and well it was over between me and Bianca; a story told by my body language, my silence. I was loathe to tell her I was single. Being taken was an easy out and I was sick of ship life's Green Card crap. "It's over. And believe me, I'm finished with Romanian women. Screw 'em all."

  Cosmina eyed me warily.

  "If you want out of Romania so bad," I finally said, "Why not go after Fabrice? France is nice."

  "Oh, please," Cosmina chortled. "He's smaller than I am!"

  "So what? It's not about love. It's about citizenship. Maybe go after an officer." With more than a little contempt, I added, "They're apparently suffering a shortage of white women."

  4

  That evening I was lured into the main lounge, near the boundary to the casino. The casino itself was empty, barring Dimitar, who loitered at a blackjack table as sentry. He frequently allowed his employees a chance to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, which they did with wild abandon. At a corner table nearby sat two blackjack dealers and Cosmina.

  To my surprise, all three women conversed in Romanian. A svelte brunette with high cheekbones and a killer body was obviously Romanian, but I never would have pegged the petite blonde as such. I was stunned to recognize her as the lady I'd seen at the Shipwreck Cathedral in Malta. I was again struck by her simple, delicate beauty. I was about to engage her when the brunette spoke.

  "So you're the American who speaks Romanian," she said with a husky voice. "Say something!"

  Waving the air clear of cigarette smoke, I replied with some banal pleasantry. She and Cosmina both burst into laughter. Seeing my frown, Cosmina patted me on the leg and said, "We don't say it like that in the capital. You say it very old fashioned."

  "Say something else!" the brunette continued, waving her cigarette excitedly. "Something a peasant would say."

  "I learned that from a retired colonel," I snapped, annoyed. "I'm not a performing monkey."

  Through it all the blonde merely sipped her coffee, utterly aloof. Suddenly the brunette groaned, saying, "He's back."

  All eyes turned to the casino, where a nondescript guest entered and sat at a blackjack table.

  "Rude player?" I asked.

  "Not really," the brunette answered, stuffing out her cigarette. "But he doesn't tip. Aurelia, didn't you say last night he stayed until two o'clock?"

  Suddenly, to everyone's surprise, the little blonde—Aurelia—began raging in an exceptionally high-pitched voice. She rose to her feet and launched into a fiery tirade of squeaky doom.

  "Yes! Why doesn't he go to bed? Doesn't he want to sex his wife? What kind of man doesn't want to sex his wife? I've got more balls than him!"

  I instantly took a liking to this suddenly not-so-quiet blonde. With her falsetto voice she could be as sassy as she wanted and get away with it—and was she ever sassy. A strangely alluring and amusing dichotomy, this mousy woman. Not done with her harangue, she turned to the lounge, shook her little fist in the air, and furiously cheeped, "I've got bigger balls than you! Look at my balls!"

  5

  Of equal height to Mt. Capanne, but much greater danger, was Stromboli. The island and the volcano were rea
lly one and the same, for there was nothing to the place but steep flanks rising up to the crater. Actually there were three craters. And actually there was something more to the island: a tiny community of bat-shit crazy fishermen hugging the shore. Stromboli erupted more regularly than Old Faithful in Yellowstone—every twenty or thirty minutes—with the added oomph of major explosions every few months. If living on the side of a live volcano that's erupted continuously since Christ isn't bat-shit crazy, I don't know what is.

  Stromboli was famous for several reasons. It was probably the most visited volcano on Earth, lovingly called "the Lighthouse of the Mediterranean." Its eruptions were so distinctive that vulcanologists used the word 'Strombolian' to describe similar activity in other volcanoes around the world. So famous is Stromboli that Jules Verne mentioned it in his famed novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, when Axel and Otto Lidenbrock emerge from their subterranean journey via the volcano.

  Wind Surf's arrival to Stromboli wasn't quite so exotic. We sailed past the peak just after the sun dipped below the horizon. The waters lost their gold-tipped turbulence and turned to black chop. The beast rose from the dark, black on black, silhouetted only by stars. Red vapors issued from the tip of the dark triangle, yet catching the sun swallowed by the sea.

  I had wandered up to the top deck to watch Stromboli do his thing. Boy did he. The first eruption was simply huge, with fountains of molten rock hurled high, high into the air. I desperately wanted to know how high the lava was thrown. But to me it was nothing more than a flaring patch of orange floating in the black.

  "Two hundred meters, I'd gauge," Emmet said from beside me.

  I started, having not known he was there. Nor did I realize I had spoken my thoughts aloud.

  "I only know because I've climbed to the top," Emmet explained. "I've seen it dozens of times during the day, during the night. That was a big one."

  I nodded in the dark, unable to tear my gaze from the frothing lava. Lava was awesome!

  "The mountain's fitful tonight," he said. Clasping his hands behind his back, Emmet then strode off into the night.

  I understood fitful, but no longer felt it. When I first signed on, I had reflected John Adams when he wrote in his diary, "I wander alone, and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate." Ever had I done so over Bianca. But from such activity conclusion comes, followed by a sense of peace. At times I loved her more than anything else in the world, at times she vexed me beyond my capacity to tolerate. In the end, I could do nothing but thank her for showing me just how exciting life could be, and how to chase your dream. Sometimes you even catch it. Fortunately, more often than not the journey is its own reward.

  Certainly my journey was rewarding now. Yet doubt lurked. I was disturbed by Janie's firing—disturbed by both her accusations and those of the officers. It could have been an isolated incident, yet seemed not. Mere days later another was fired. This time it was a Filipino named Juan, whom I'd enjoyed a casual acquaintance with. Like Janie, he was abandoned in Arabic North Africa, penniless and distraught. Perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps, as a security officer, he was responsible for letting the stowaway on board. But again, like with Janie, management refused to discuss anything with anyone. Nothing was certain, but one fact.

  Crew members were dropping like flies.

  My newfound joy was being stripped away. I had mistakenly thought the source of my newfound happiness was the magnificent ports. Certainly they helped. But I had to finally admit to myself that I'd seen many a fantastic spot alone and not been pleased by the experience. Joy didn't come from places, it came from sharing them with others. Oh, big ships had plenty of people—changing like underwear. Penetration was easily achieved and just as easily forgotten. Connection was the hard part. I had struggled to find my place with the various cliques, but never fit into any. On Wind Surf, I didn't just find a clique that fit: I found a family.

  For the first time, I was feeling protective of my fellow crew members. I didn't want to see any more disappear. Well, maybe Yoyo. But disappear many would, and there was nothing I could do to protect any of them... or myself.

  Chapter 15. Sete, France

  1

  I do not hate Italians. I don't think they're all deceitful thieves—just all of them I'd ever personally met. In Pompeii the train conductor stole Rick's expensive pen. In Palermo the Mafia stole and extorted at will. Captain Bixby's hot wife stole my breath. But to be fair, I've never met any Romans and was perhaps hasty when criticizing their betrayal of the Carthaginians and subsequent slaughter of every last man, woman, and child. They didn't do it because they were Italians. They were just assholes.

  There's a great deal in Italy to love. Courtesy of Wind Surf, I'd sailed into some of the most beautiful ports in the world. Courtesy of Cosmina, I'd been shuttled into some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. At a little roadside restaurant, hidden beneath the craning necks of a thousands-strong congregation of praying sunflowers, I'd reached enlightenment via pasta. Served by a little girl of perhaps ten years, the hand-made fusilli of freshly ground wheat was served al dente, wearing nothing but local olive oil and cracked pepper. That culinary masterpiece haunts me yet, for I shall never again find its like.

  And architecture? I shopped for silver on the Ponte Vecchio: a bridge so fine that even the Nazis couldn't bring themselves to destroy it. In order to cover their retreat on August 4, 1944, they demolished every other bridge in Florence. But the commander could not bring himself to fire upon Ponte Vecchio. Ignoring orders, he instead blasted apart the buildings on either side to block access. Such was the power of Italian beauty, to humble even the Nazis.

  Yes, I'd seen a great many treasures of Italy, but not the big daddy. It was time to see the Eternal City. Rome. Capital of one of the greatest empires in history. First city on Earth to reach one million residents. Home to the Vatican. Tomatoes named after it and everything. And saw it all, I did. Kinda. At least the pictures indicate I was there. I don't really remember any of it.

  The mess began in Civitavecchia. The famous seven hills upon which Rome was founded were actually a ways inland, so the Port of Rome was actually in the township called Civitavecchia. There wasn't much to Civitavecchia, so it was Rome or bust.

  Previously it had always been bust. We'd been hitting up Civitavecchia for several months, but I'd never been able to head inland. Though Wind Surf was in port until very late at night, Francois always scheduled a meeting smack dab in the middle of the day, thus denying anyone access to the city. Only Rome was so denied, so he must have hated the city. Maybe he had an ex-boyfriend there or something. Regardless of reason, the results were maddening. Even worse was that I had no reason to be at the meetings. They were an employee discussion for department heads. I didn't have any employees! Neither did Eddie, but he didn't mind attending because Susie wasn't adventuresome enough to visit Rome, anyway. So while Janie—now Mel—bemoaned working with Nina, I just sat there, not being in Rome. It was hard not to glower.

  But Rick convinced me to give Rome a go. As head of the spa, he was also required to attend the meeting, but he claimed to have a plan of some sort. Though highly dubious, I was desperate to see Rome. And Rick was an interesting dude to hang with.

  Rick was an Englishman-turned-Aussie. He had served six years in the British Special Forces, predominantly in the greater Australian theatre, and decided to retire there. Thus he picked up enough Aussie slang to confuse people who analyzed his dialect. His physicality was equally confusing. When I had first met him in Croatia five months before—had it really been so long already?—he had been more or less slender. His powerful shoulders had since pooled into a belly. Though sagging in sloth, he was yet prone to bursts of intense energy.

  Rick reminded me of words once written by Joseph Conrad, "When attentively considered [his behavior] seemed appalling at times. He was a strange beast. But maybe women liked it. Seen in that light he was well worth taming, and I suppose every woman at the bottom of her heart consider
s herself as a tamer of strange beasts." Certainly all the women of his spa would follow him anywhere.

  Indeed, two of them followed us to Rome. Natalie's presence concerned me mightily, for if she couldn't handle the train ride to Pompeii, she would surely go nuts on this longer trip to Rome. The latest addition to the spa, a sassy Norwegian named Ingrid, seemed a bird of a feather. Those two sheilas—as Rick was wont to say—were his cheerleaders.

  "But we've got to be back at three o'clock," I lamented on the train heading out of town. "That means leaving Rome at... what, one o'clock? We'll have less than four hours there. I can't bear the thought of being a hundred feet from the Sistine Chapel and not having time to see Michelangelo's work."

  "I've got a plan," Rick repeated.

  "Unless you have an extra hour in your pocket, I don't see how you can change anything."

  "I can change everything," Rick stressed, eyes gleaming. He tugged the gold hoop in his ear: a sign of impending mischief. He nodded towards the imposing, yet soft figure approaching down the train's central aisle. "Behold the plan!"

  I frowned up at six feet of beaming Natalie. She wore a black top with customized sleeves—that is, torn off—over painfully mauve sweatpants. She looked ready for Walmart, not Rome. Cradling four bottles of beer before most had even sipped their morning coffee only reinforced the impression. The beer titan extended a claw, offering me libation.