Tobin, thanks to the largess of the game show 'Celebrity Circle,' was spending the cruise in a Mode 5 cabin, which meant he enjoyed the perks of a double bed, a bureau in which to put his underwear with the ragged elastic and the socks that never seemed quite to match, and a somewhat large mirror above the bureau, in which he could assess what forty-two years, red hair, alcohol, any number of fistfights, and the curse of being only five had done to him.
From the Parade deck he heard the sounds of a band that was made up of lounge lizard rejects from New York-he knew this for sure because they'd bored him in any number of night spots-four guys who all wanted to be Bert Convy when they grew up.
Or was he being unfair, as he was so often unfair? He decided probably, and he decided to hell with it, and went back to staring at the TV screen.
Thus far he'd not had the idyllic cruise the brochure promised-all that deck tennis, all those voluptuous girls in string bikinis, all those stout chefs pointing to banquet tables filled with colorful decadent food of every kind-no, he'd not had the kind of vacation the brochure wanted you to have, and it was nobody's fault but his own.
The problem was, he was behind in his viewing. Daily, Tobin was bombarded with five to ten VHS videotapes that he'd supposedly view and review for any number of publications. And God, was he behind. Not only had he not seen the new Scorsese; he had yet to see the new Stallone. Not only had Taylor Hackford been overlooked-so had that most celebrated of hacks, Herbert Ross.
Even at this early stage, the voyage had consisted of getting ready to tape segments of 'Celebrity Circle' and then immediately dashing back to his cabin for endless goblets of white wine, a cigarillo that he inhaled only occasionally (one couldn't really count this as smoking, could one? Could one?), and grinding through tape after tape on his VCR.
He had learned long ago-and thank the cinema gods for this-to view videos the way New York editors read slush. (Read the first two pages and then start skimming.) All you needed to do was keep your thumb close by the Fast Forward…
Amazing how accurate your review could be even though you'd maybe watched-at most-twenty minutes of a ninety-minute film. But then how tough was it to predict the plot of a picture called Alien Invaders or Razor Killer?
Thundergirls was the name of the video he was watching now.
The biggest problem of the whole process was, of course, staying sober. Easy to keep guzzling and to be drunk before you knew it.
Which is what had happened tonight.
He was potzed enough that even the plot line of Thundergirls was difficult to follow.
It seemed to go something like this: there were these three roller-derby girls who were plucked from earth by some strange force and pressed into battle against this creature who lived in a mountain that erupted Vesuvius-like about every five minutes (actually it was the same bad piece of animation played over and over). Or something.
To be perfectly honest, all he cared about was their breasts anyway.
The girls couldn't act (two of them could barely form words), they couldn't move, but by God could they jiggle. They could jiggle wonderfully, marvelously, magnificently, and so what if it was a tatty little picture made by sleazy and cynical morons? By God, it couldn't be all bad, not with breasts like these.
And it was then he realized (a) just how drunk he was and (b) what a great review he could write of this if only his sober courage matched his drunken inspiration.
What if he did a review of Thundergirls that said right up front that it was a terrible, incompetent, dull picture but that it was filled with gorgeous breasts? Then he'd proceed to rate the three girls on exactly the basis they should be rated-their looks.
Laughing out loud, already hearing 'Sexist!' cried by a chorus of female editors and readers alike, he leaned over, actually sort of collapsed to the right, looking for more wine, and discovered that he had no more wine.
No more wine!
He could no more view videos without wine than he could without a Fast Forward button on his remote control.
He would have to wobble aft and get himself another bottle.
Then he stood up and felt the room spin. Good Lord. He needed air, fresh air, and badly and now. He left his room immediately.
What he ended up doing, first thing, was strolling about thirty feet down the deck and barfing over the side.
He was careful to lean out as far as he could-there were after all four other decks below him-and in the wind the stuff was rather like orange confetti against the silver moonlight, not unpretty at all.
Then, feeling not only better but infinitely more sober, he began thinking that, after a few blasts of the mouth spray he always carried with him, he might stop in the lounge, have a diet 7-Up, and try his luck. Lay off the wine a bit. And definitely lay off the videos for the night.
A definite spring came into his step; it was, after all, May, wasn't it? And he was aboard a vast and expensive cruise ship in the Pacific, wasn't he? And however much a shit he'd been in the past (whenever he got drunk, he inevitably began thinking of all the ways he'd let down his children, his ex-wife, various girlfriends, his parents, and at least six or seven million other people on the planet)-however much of a shit he'd been in the past, there was no reason to punish himself any more tonight, was there?
No, not any more tonight.
A definite spring came into his step. A definite one.
3
Cindy didn't realize he'd been stabbed until she got him completely rolled over and then got up and turned on the lights and saw the knife sticking out of his chest and the squishy circle of red blood widening with each passing moment.
What struck her first was the ridiculousness of it all. She knew, at least according to all the movies she'd seen, that she was (a) supposed to scream, (b) run terrified from the cabin, or (c) faint.
But actually what she was thinking of was what a wonderful letter this would make to Aberdeen.
Dear Aberdeen,
By now you've probably heard about the murder of that handsome TV star Ken Norris.
Can you keep a secret? He died in my cabin during the cruise. In fact, I was in the shower just before we were supposed to-
Well, I suppose you can fill in that particular blank for yourself, can't you, Aberdeen?
I can't tell you the terrible sadness I feel. Ken and I had become extremely close during the evening we'd spent together. He'd shown me the photos in his wallet (of his 1958 red Thun-derbird and his house in Malibu) and I'd told him all about the insurance company and how you and I suspected our supervisor, Mr. Flan-nagan, of being an embezzler and everything.
But please, Aberdeen, respect my feelings. Please keep this our secret.
Yours sincerely,
Cindy
Aberdeen would be on the company's PA system for sure with this one, and what fame it would be for Cindy. How she'd sparkle among the drab people. A Pacific cruise turning into the murder of a TV star right in her own
