'Not quite as bad. Certainly not as bad for lung cancer rates. About the same for oral and throat cancer, unfortunately.'
'You sure know how to talk a guy into taking a cigar.'
'Even in our small pleasures, there is some element of risk, Mr. Tobin.' He lifted his glass of bourbon. 'The rate of esophagus cancer, for instance, increases with every drink of alcohol we have.'
'Remind me to invite you to my next party.'
'And it's the same with the principle of the greater good. There is some risk in it, I realize.'
'That's nice of you, especially since you don't happen to be a frightened twenty-eight-year-old woman from Kansas City.'
'She hardly seems helpless.'
'Meaning what?'
'I have daughters of my own, Mr. Tobin. I don't like to think they're the sort who'd go to a man's room on the first night they met him.'
'She's not perfect, Captain. That doesn't mean she's a terrible woman.'
'Still.'
Tobin had more bourbon. 'Why did you have the doctor examine her this morning? What were you looking for?'
'Why should you need to know something like that, Mr. Tobin?'
'Because I'm trying to help Cindy.'
'I seem to recall that you helped solve the murder of your partner.'
'If you're saying I'm not a detective, you're right. But then neither are you.' He finished his drink and set it down. 'And I'd appreciate knowing why you had the doctor examine her.'
'I'm afraid that's classified.'
''Classified' information on a cruise ship?'
Hackett smiled and not unpleasantly. 'A holdover from my navy days, I suppose.'
Tobin stood up. 'You know she didn't do it and I know she didn't do it, and I'd like you to stop spreading those rumors just to cover your own ass.'
'Your reputation seems to be true.'
'Which reputation? There are several of them.'
'That you're something of a hothead, Mr. Tobin.'
'I just don't want to see her suffer anymore, Captain. Believe it or not, having somebody stabbed to death in your cabin is a very unnerving experience. She'll never forget it. Her whole life will be divided very neatly in two because of it.' He was angry and he jabbed at the air with a small sharp finger. He wasn't tough but he was capable of rage and many times that was far more imposing than being tough. 'She's a nice kid and she doesn't deserve to be used as a tranquilizer for the rest of the ship. You understand?'
'I don't like being threatened, Mr. Tobin.'
'Right now, I don't give a damn what you like, Captain.' He jabbed out the cigar he'd been smoking. 'Right now, I don't give a damn at all.”
15
What he wanted was a burger and fries (hell, a cheeseburger and fries) and not the McDonald's kind, either. He wanted the kind you used to go into neighborhood burger joints for, where the guy made them on a grill right in front of you, and maybe even cut an edge out of the patty and said, 'That done enough for you,' and then you got a bottle of Heinz ketchup and some big chunky sweet dill slices and some wide silver slices of onion and a few dollops of mustard for taste and, man, when you tasted it, you wanted to cry it was so good. So frigging good.
Instead, spread before him tonight under lights more appropriate to lighting a Vegas star, was a vast table filled with stuff called Scallop Brochettes with Lime Butter and Costolette di Agnello and Spinach, Fennel, and Pink Grapefruit Salad. And lots of other dishes equally fancy and equally not burger and french fries.
He ended up conning the waiter into bringing him a tunafish sandwich and some potato chips.
'You're not taking advantage of it,' Cindy McBain said. She wore a baby blue sweater and dark blue skirt. The simple pearl necklace reminded him of high school and her chignon gave her an elegance he hadn't noticed before. She still looked tired but she also managed to look dazzled by the spread of exotic food and the carnival atmosphere provided by the third-rate lounge act presently on the stage.
'You sure you don't want a bite of my…' Cindy couldn't pronounce what she was eating. 'Stuff.'
'No, thanks.'
'A bite wouldn't kill you.'
'This crap, you can't be too sure.'
'What's wrong with this… crap?'
'Maybe it's just my mood.'
'Well, why don't you take just a teensy bite?'
She was like a six-year-old. Gentle but persistent. He was damn well going to have a bite. He was damn well going to be festive.
He pushed his face forward to her, in the wavering candlelight, and put out his tongue.
'You look like you're going to receive communion.' Cindy giggled.
'Lay it on me, Father.'
Cindy giggled again and started feeding him. He felt like an infant. It wasn't a completely terrible feeling, either. Sometimes being an infant didn't seem to be the worst fate in the world. People fussing over you all the time and playing giggy-goo-goo and wiping your butt for you and suffocating you with love and animal crackers. There were a hell of a lot worse gigs in the world than that one.
He was taking a bite of something that tasted remarkably like Kraft Cheeze-Whiz when, peripherally, he saw the man who'd been listening outside the party room door last night before the captain had told the 'Celebrity Circle' about Ken Norris's death.
Tonight he wore another western-style suit, a gray one without frills, and the Stetson, which he took off and set on the table with a certain air of ceremony.
Abruptly, like a man used to being obeyed, he raised his hand and snapped his finger and a waiter, wary at being summoned this way, moved quickly to him. The man gave every impression of being competent, knowing, and more than likely dangerous. Tobin wondered more than ever who he was, and why he'd been listening at the door last night.
'He's interesting, isn't he?' Cindy said.
'Ummm.'
'Ken didn't like him.'
Tobin brought his attention back to her. 'What?'
'Ken didn't like him.'
'How do you know?'
'Because we saw him on the veranda, coming back to my cabin.'
'And?'
'Ken got very tense.'
'You sure?'
'He'd been holding my arm and he really gave it a squeeze. It hurt.'
'But he didn't say anything about him?'
'No.'
'And you didn't see the man again?'
'Huh-uh. Not till just now.' Then she inclined her head back to where the man in the western suit sat. 'Hey, look.'
