Go now, he decided. Go now because they were in a movement here, a flow, and it would be best to just keep it going, not let it break off and then later try to start it up again. And go now because he was tired of being Mister Assemblyman. “We’re not quite finished,” he said. “When we arefinished, if there’s still time, I’ll be very happy to join you and the captain you will join us, won’t you? in a drink.”
Either she was bewildered, or she did bewilderment well. “Not finished? But you’ve seen everything.”
“I haven’t seen,” he said, “where the money goes. It’s still on the ship, is it not?”
She looked stricken. “Oh, Mister Assemblyman, we can’t do that.”
He gave her his most suspicious glare. “Can’t do what?”
“That room,” she said, “you see, that room is completely closed away, for security reasons, nobodycan get into that room.”
“Nonsense,” he said. “There must be people in there. How do they get out?”
“They have their own door on the side of the ship,” she explained, “with access direct to the dock and the armored car, when we land.”
He said, “You’re telling me there’s no way in or out of that place, whatever the place is”
“The money room,” she said. “It’s called the money room.”
“Because that’s the whole point of the operation, isn’t it?” he demanded. “The money. And what happens to it next.”
“Mister Assemblyman, the company’s books are”
“Very attractive, I have no doubt,” he interrupted. “Ms. Cahill, do you suddenly have something to hide from me? The very cruxof this matter is what happens to gambling money once it has been lost to the casino operator.”
“Mister Kotkind,” she said, voice rising, forgetting to call him by his title, “we hide nothingon this ship! Every penny is accounted for.”
“And yet you tell me there’s no access to the, what did you call it, money room. And if this ship were to sink, the people in that money room would simply die? If it caught fire? Is thatwhat you’re telling me? You have human beings in that room, and their safety is at risk for money?”
“Of course not.” She was scrambling now, not sure how to stay ahead of him. “They can unlock themselves out if it’s absolutely necessary.”
“And unlock others in,” he insisted. “I haven’t even seen the doorto this place. Is there”
“It has its own staircase,” she said reluctantly, “down from the restroom area, with a guard at the top and a verylocked door at the bottom.”
“Oh, does it. And I assume that door has, like any apartment in my district in Brooklyn, an intercom beside the door, and a bell. You can ring that bell and explain the situation and they can open up and let me in to inspect that room and I can see for myselfwhat’s happening with that money.”
“Mister Ambas Assemblyman, I
” She shook her head, and moved her hands around.
“And without,”he told her, as heavily as any prosecutor, “warning them ahead of time that they are going to be observed.”
She’d run out of things to say, but she still didn’t want to give in. She was desperate, confused, blind-sided but not yet defeated. She stood staring at Sternberg, trying to find a way out.
No; no way out. He let the full flood of his exasperation wash over her: “Ms. Cahill, do I have to go to the captain?This absolutely corepart of my inspection you are unreasonably denying me, and you claim there’s nothing to hide? Is thatwhat I must take back to the assembly with me and report to my colleagues? Shall I explain what my report is going to be to the captain?”
Silence. Cahill took a deep breath. Her previously perfect complexion was blotched. She sighed. “Very well, Mister Assemblyman,” she said. “Come along.”
8
As far as George Twill was concerned, no matter who upstairs won or lost, he himself was the luckiest person on this ship. He was fifty-one years of age, and he’d been more than two years out of a job, after the State Street in Albany branch of Merchants Bank downsized him. Twenty-two years of steady employment, and boom. Unemployment insurance gone, severance pay almost used up, savings dwindling, no jobs anywhere. Supermarket assistant manager; movie theater manager; parking garage manager; even motel desk clerk: every job went to somebody else. George was feeling pretty desperate by the time he joined the hundreds of other people who responded to the newspaper ad for jobs on this ship, to fill in for the people who hadn’t traveled with it up from the south. And he got the job. Teller in the money room, so here he was a teller again, though a very different kind of teller from before. But the people in the money room had to not only have some banking background but they also needed solid reputations, because they’d be bonded, so that was why George Twill was at last employed again, at better than his old salary at the bank. And thisjob wouldn’t be taken over by an ATM machine.
He was by far the oldest of the five people who worked in here, probably twenty years older than his immediate boss, Pete Hancourt, whose job title was cashier but who was known in the room as Pete. They were a pretty informal bunch in here, happy in their work, and with one another. The two women were Helen and Ruth, and the other male teller was Sam. They worked day shift four days, then three days off, then night shift three nights, then four days off. Good pay, easy hours, fine co-workers; heaven, after the hell of the last two years.
The other thing George had, because he was the oldest here, was one extra responsibility. He was in charge of the panic button. It was on the floor, a large flat metal circle that stuck up no more than an inch, and it was an easy reach, maybe eighteen inches, from where his left foot was normally positioned when he was seated at his counter. If anything ever happened in here that wasn’t supposed to happen, like a fire or a sudden illness or a leak in the side of the ship all of them extremely unlikely it would be George’s job to reach over with his left food and press down just once on that button. Otherwise, his responsibility was not to bump into that button inadvertently. No problem; it was tucked well out of the way.
