Several Deaths Later

'You think I don't remember where I live?'

'Did you ever live in a trailer?'

'No. And I'm sick of your questions.'

She looked sad then, and silly, standing there in her costume and he felt sorry for her. He wondered if she knew how sad and silly she looked. She was one of those doggedly happy people whom you secretly suspect are always miserable.

Except now she wasn't even doggedly happy. She wasn't happy at all.

'Does the word 'payday' mean anything to you?'

'No.' But she said it far too quickly.

'Ken Norris used that word.'

'I wouldn't know.'

'When you slapped Todd you screamed at him that you were all glad Ken was dead.'

'I was drunk.'

'But you said it.'

'So?'

'Why did you all hate him?'

'You didn't like him yourself. I saw how you watched him.'

'But I didn't hate him.'

She adjusted her Bo Peep bonnet. 'I need to finish getting ready, Tobin. I can't say I've enjoyed this conversation.'

Tobin said, 'You wouldn't know where Ken Norris did his banking by any chance, would you?'

And he saw it then-panic on her face. He had no idea why the reference would have rattled her but obviously it had.

'Just get out of here,' she said.

She closed the door before he could say anything else.

Ten minutes later he found the producer, Jere Farris, in one of the small lounges.

There was a piano player in a red lame dinner jacket struggling with a Nat King Cole song. It was very dark and in the darkness tiny red candles burned inside red glass globes. The seats were leather. They made a squishing sound when you sat in them.

Jere Farris looked relaxed for the first time in the two weeks Tobin had known him. It was due in large measure to the fact Jere Farris was potzed. Or at least seriously working toward such.

Farris wore a white golf shirt with a sweater tied rakishly around his neck. A massive Rolex watch rode his slender wrist, diamonds glittered in the globe light each time he took a drink. He smoked a cigarette with a ferocity that was disarming in these days of anti-smoking campaigns everywhere you looked. But even here, away from the frenzy, there was an air of petulance and prissiness about him. He was not the sort of man Tobin liked much, self- absorbed and waspish, unwilling to acknowledge in any way that you might have griefs just as he had griefs.

Tobin said, 'Mind if I sit down?'

'Seems you already have.'

'Mind if I order a drink?'

'As long as you don't expect me to pay for it.'

Tobin said, 'I'm now officially a pariah?'

Farris jabbed out his cigarette. 'I don't know what the hell you think you're doing.'

'Trying to find out what's going on. In case you forgot, three people have been killed.'

'Yes, and they've ruined the entire voyage. This was supposed to be nothing but good publicity.'

Tobin thought of Captain Hackett's remark about the callousness of show-biz people. 'You all wanted Ken Norris dead.'

'You can prove that?'

'Not at the moment but Iris Graves, the reporter who was killed, was working on it.' He paused. 'I've been going through her things.'

Farris reacted just as Cassie McDowell had. With surprise. 'How'd you get her' things?'

'Captain Hackett asked me to go through her belongings-and Sanderson's, the detective's.'

Farris sat back in his chair. He looked defeated. 'I don't suppose you give a damn that you're ruining our livelihoods. I mean, I really don't look forward to directing local news. This show is my last best shot. I'm forty years old.'

Tobin calculated the effect of his words and said, 'Do you happen to know where Ken Norris banked in Beverly Hills?'

And there it was. The same sort of glare he'd received from Cassie. But Farris was more skillful at recovering. 'Now how would you expect me to know that?'

'The night he was killed you were-where?' He sipped his drink. 'You think you're a coy one, don't you, Tobin?'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning I know you and Joanna have discussed me. Joanna told me.' He paused. 'Joanna and I were together in her cabin.'

'She'll swear to that?'

A tiny smile came on to his face. 'She'll swear to anything I ask her to. She happens to love me.'

He sounded like the second lead in a bad movie of a D. H. Lawrence book.

'You've got a nice wife, Farris. You should remember that.'

'Next time I need advice about my love life, I'll be sure to write you a letter.' He grinned with a great deal of malice. 'I mean, you're so successful with women. You've been chasing Cindy McBain-and Kevin Anderson catches her.'

He continued to grin as Tobin stood up, nodded, and walked away.

For all the unpleasantness, Tobin had achieved his purpose.

He'd now told two members of the 'Celebrity Circle' group that the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson could be found in his cabin. They would inevitably tell all the others.

Now all Tobin had to do was wait and see who showed up to steal the stuff.

29

9:10 P.M.

He'd learned years ago to attend all costume parties as the Burglar.

Oh, people complained of course, and said he was a spoilsport and never got in the fun of anything. And that was, he supposed, true enough, having spent his earlier years as a rather public drunkard (lots of fistfights, most of which he lost) and would-be provocateur (years of boring people to death with his attacks on Godard, whom, he'd discovered one sober day, not many people liked much anyway). People now had the well-deserved impression that he could be at least a bit of a jerk about anything social, like a little boy who didn't want to get dressed up for his cousin's birthday party.

So the Burglar was perfect because while all these other people were making utter fools of themselves gotten up as Scaramouche and Donald Duck and Marie Antoinette, Tobin simply wore whatever sport-coat felt comfortable, slacks, a shirt and tie, and the simple Burglar mask-and voila! — he was instantly transformed into the perfect costume party attendee.

'That's really kind of a mean thing to do,' Cindy McBain said when he stopped by her cabin to pick her up. She wore a black-and-white nun's habit, the penguin-type, right down to the thunderous black oxfords. She was excitingly erotic, making Tobin wonder if he'd had a long-repressed desire to hump the nuns of his schoolboy youth. She'd worked wonders with makeup on her black eye. 'Why is it mean?'