“Good,” said Bacall. She slowly drew on the cigaret, then puffed smoke in Sheldon’s face. “Now stick it up your nose. And Canada too!”
“Brenda?” Sheldon gasped. “Is that you?”
She angled a hip, Bacall-like, and retorted, “It’s not Peter Lorre, Sheldon.”
“How’d you know who I was? I mean....”
“Never mind,” she said; her voice became less sultry, more like Brenda Impanema’s normal throatiness. “What I want to know is what gives you the right to decide ‘The Starcrossed’ is going to Canada. And me with it.”
“Oh,” Sheldon said. There didn’t seem to be any Cooper lines to cover this situation. “Les told you about it.”
“No he didn’t,” Brenda-Bacall said. “Les is as big a snake as you are. Bigger. He kept his mouth shut.”
Sheldon glanced around for a possible escape route. None. He and Brenda were alone on the sealed-in weather deck. The rest of the crowd had gone inside. Brenda stood between him and the nearest hatch leading to the party. If he tried to run for another hatch in these damned platform boots, he’d either fall flat on his face or she would catch him in a few long-legged strides. Either way it would be too humiliating to bear. So he stood there and tried to look brave and unshaken.
“If you must know how I found out,” Brenda went on, “I asked Murray what you were up to.”
“Murray told you?” Sheldon heard his voice go up an octave with shock. Uncle Murray was a fink!
“Murray’s everybody’s friend. Knows all and tells all.”
“But he’s not supposed to tell about private conversations! Only business matters!”
“That’s all he told me,” Brenda said. “Your business conversation with Ron Gabriel.”
Sheldon felt a wave of relief wash over him. Or maybe it was a swaying of the ship. At any rate, Murray could be trusted. At least one central fixture in the universe stayed in place.
Lauren Bacall grinned at him and Brenda’s voice answered, “I called Les’s secretary for a lunch appointment and she told me he’d already gone to lunch with you. When he got back, he was kinda smashed. As usual. I dropped into his office before his sober-up pills could grab hold of him. He leered at me and asked how I like cold winters. Which means he approves of your plans.”
Sheldon shook his head in reluctant admiration. “You ought to be a detective.”
“I ought to be a lot of things,” she said, “but I’m not a call girl. I’m not going to Canada.”
“But I thought you liked Gabriel.”
“Whatever’s between Ron and me is between Ron and me. I’m not going to become part of his harem just to suit you.”
“It’s not me,” Sheldon protested. “It’s for Titanic.”
“Nope,” Brenda stole Cooper’s line.
“It’s for B.F.”
She shook her head, but Sheldon thought he noticed the barest little hesitation in her action.
“B.F. wants you to do it,” Sheldon pressed the slight opening.
“B.F. doesn’t know anything about it yet,” Brenda said, “and when he does find out....”
The roar of a powerful motor drowned out her words. Looking around, Sheldon saw that a small boat was racing alongside the ship, not more than twenty meters from the Adventurer. The cruise ship had cleared the line of off shore oil rigs and was out of the smog area. The sky above was clear and awash with moonlight. A few very bright stars twinkled here and there.
“That damned fool’s going to get himself killed,” Sheldon said.
The motorboat was edging closer to the Adventurer, churning up a white wake as it cleaved through the ocean swells.
“He’s going to sideswipe us!” Brenda shouted. “Do something, Sheldon.”
But there was nothing he could do. No emergency phone or fire alarm box in sight along this stretch of plastic-domed deck.
The motorboat disappeared from their view, it was getting so close to the liner. Brenda and Sheldon pressed their noses against the plastic, but they’d have to be able to lean over the railing to see the motorboat now.
They heard a thump.
“Oh my god!” Brenda’s voice was strangely high and shrill.
More bumps.
“They must be breaking up against our hull,” Sheldon said. He still couldn’t think of anything to do about it.
Then something hit against the plastic wall not five meters away from Sheldon’s face. He shrieked and leaped backwards.
“Giant squid!” Sheldon shouted.
It did have suction cups on it. But after that first wild flash of panic, he saw that it was a mechanical arm, not a tentacle.
“It looks like a ladder,” Brenda said.
His stomach churning, Sheldon said, “I think we’d better get back inside and tell somebody....”
