Cashed In Part 19

Ingrid and I shared a grimace. "All men are at that place," Ingrid murmured.

"Listen," I said, "Ian doesn't have anything to do with my feeling like I've been pulled through a knothole backwards. I was attacked twice yesterday-in the spa and then out on deck during the aperitif reception."

"I wondered why they suspended the tournament for the night," Ben observed, gingerly investigating the b.u.mp on my head. He actually looked concerned. Amazing. "You think it's because you are a poker star or are you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong again?"

"What do you mean, again? If I hadn't stuck it there last time you'd be a goner-might I remind you, in an especially painful and sick way."

Ingrid raised her eyebrows at that. Ben shrugged.

"It's a good thing you're getting off the ship with Mom and Dad today, Bee Bee. Maybe the ship security will get to the bottom of this weirdness by the time you're back on board."

"We can hope, but I doubt it. They seem more enthused about covering up the disappearances than finding out who's behind them. As for the poor investigator, no telling what excuse they will come up with for his demise."

"Hey, another reason it's good you're outta here for the day is that maybe Slimeball will find someone else to play with."

"Why does everyone think Ian is slimy?"

"Because compared to Frank-Mr.-Rough-Around-the-Edges, he is," Ben stated.

Ingrid turned away but I saw her small smile. Gut twist. That reminded me. "By the way, Ingrid, how come you didn't tell me you are Frank's friend?"

"Is that important?" she asked innocently, face in closet, reviewing my fashion options for the day. I hated to tell her but I thought the saggy b.u.t.t capris were going to be the only way to go if I were scaling crumbling rock structures in a hundred humid degrees.

"It's that important to me," I said defiantly.

"Okay," she said, turning from the closet with an impossibly short strapless sundress and tie-up-the-calf sandals that were at least flat, her one nod to practicality. She elaborated as she searched the top drawer for jewelry, "Frank and I are really more business a.s.sociates than friends."

"Business a.s.sociates?" I demanded. "I thought you were a student?"

"I am a student, getting my PhD in psychology."

Oh geez, she was probably my age and just looked eighteen. That would really depress me.

"But when you aren't in cla.s.s, you work in 'security' with Frank?" I prodded.

"No, I'm really more in public relations. Sometimes our work overlaps, then we work together. Simple as that."

Simple as the Pythagorean theorem.

Ben looked from Ingrid to me and back, then shrugged. Mysteries and unanswered questions never bothered him much, which I'm certain is why he looked like a movie star and I looked like our great uncle Wilbur. "If you're on the road to semirecovery, I'm off. Stella and I have to hit the Astroturf," Ben said, laughing at his own poor joke.

Ingrid c.o.c.ked her head at me as he let himself out the door. "Football?"

"No, the Vegas pool has poker tables in the water with Astroturf instead of felt."

She nodded. "Weird boat."

"Smart boat, if you think about it, offering gambling to everyone at every opportunity. I hear there are even slot machines next to every chair in the burger and pizza bar."

Ingrid picked out a twenty-six-inch silver and colored sea gla.s.s necklace and matching dangle earrings and put them with the sundress.

I shook my head at the ensemble, pulling out the practical outfit I'd already figured on wearing. "Ingrid, I'm going hiking in a third world country not cruising Rodeo Drive."

"Image is everything. You never know who you'll see. What if the ESPN crew decides to follow an excursion and it's yours?" She waved at the crinkled up pair of capris, T-shirt and Pumas I'd chosen. "You don't want that on national TV, do you?"

"I just want to get my parents back to the boat in one piece," I said. "Now back to Frank. How often do you work together?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes for a month straight, sometimes only a day every six months."

"So could you find out what work kept him from taking the cruise?"

"I don't think so," she said, looking out the gla.s.s at the balcony.

"Okay, how about you tell me all you know about him."

"He's extremely private, super focused, good hearted, tough skinned. An ultra type-A workaholic with baggage he tries to hide."

I think I knew about the baggage but I thought I'd better ask in case there was more. "Like what?"

"Alcoholism and personal relationships that don't always go his way."

Control, Bee. I let out the breath I'd been holding. I picked up the dress and hung it back in the closet. I could ask about girlfriends, but decided I didn't want to know. "Have you met his ex?"

"Nooo," she answered but still didn't meet my gaze. "I didn't know he had one."

"Still, you seem to know him pretty well." I tried to keep my voice neutral but my alto cracked a bit on the last word. Don't think I fooled her.

"Not really," Ingrid smiled casually. "I'm a psych major, I a.n.a.lyze everyone."

"So why would a flack need a psych degree?" I asked, still bothered that it all wasn't jibing.

"You don't think knowing how and why people act they way they do would help you in advertising?"

"Of course it would."

"PR is nothing but advertising image. Speaking of which, we need to talk about your website."

I started to tell her about Ringo's column when a knock sounded at the door. I opened it, a.s.suming Ben had forgotten to tell me something but instead Jack stood in the hallway. I stepped back to let him in and he paused, blushing madly, when he saw Ingrid, who'd suddenly struck a coy pose, batting her eyelashes.

After an awkward few seconds, Jack turned to me. "We've got to t-talk."

Twenty-two.

"D-d-don't ever d-do that to me again."

"What did I do?"

"I've been worried sick," Jack told me as he paced the cabin, his words coming out in such a rush, he didn't have time to stutter. "You never came back into the ballroom from the cappuccino break. Kinkaid came into the tournament and called it off for the night, saying another weather system had forced us out of international waters, which was c.r.a.p. You wouldn't answer your cabin phone so I came down here and saw some big cowboy coming out of your cabin. He didn't stop when I called out. I thought he'd flung you off your balcony.

"So I got my video camera, bribed the people in the cabin directly below yours to let me in and taped my camera to their shower curtain rod and lifted it up to your balcony. I could see you on the bed and panicked. But then you started snoring so I felt better."

"You have that on video?" I asked.

He nodded proudly.

"Let's put it on the website," Ingrid offered.

He grinned at Ingrid, and she grinned back. I guess he'd forgiven her for yesterday's dalliance. They would've probably spent hours grinning at each other except I broke it up with the story of what happened to me on the promenade.

"Awful," Ingrid murmured at one point when I paused to catch my breath. She turned away and began reviewing my jewelry.

"So who is this g-guy?" Jack mused when I'd finished, throwing a secret look Ingrid's way.

"I still don't know."

Ingrid shrugged, still avoiding eye contact. She was hiding something for sure. But what? And why?

Jack had been busy since he'd left me snoring. He'd found Eria's cabin on the fourth deck pretty easily later that night as he stalked the hallways and finally found a mute security cretin who sounded like Phil stationed outside a cabin door. Showing great potential to be a real investigative journalist or a career criminal, Jack got some fishing line from his cabin, tied it around the vase of flowers on the gla.s.s table at the elevator, pulled the line up from the bottom of his pants, through the waistband, under his suit jacket and held it on his finger. As he walked six feet past Phil, he yanked it. The huge crash at the end of the hall sent Phil racing to check it out. Jack knocked on Eria's door and she opened it.

Once inside he got the scoop. She'd found their cabin in slight disarray, clothes here and there, bedcover askew, but it just as easily could have been attributed to Mahdu rushing to get ready for dinner as it could have been an attacker. The walkie talkie was nowhere to be found. His wallet was missing. Ferris was nowhere to be found, his cabin undisturbed. Kinkaid and her cruise cronies had scared Eria into leaving the ship in Cozumel with the promise they would continue to look into Mahdu's disappearance, although they filled her with propaganda that made her believe he was just taking a hiatus from her or from life. In other words, his disappearance was his fault. They fed her statistics about people (like Rick) who went mysteriously MIA for hours just to reappear and people (possibly like Rawhide Jones, they told her) who got so depressed they jumped or so drunk they fell off the side. Sometimes people had medical conditions they were unaware of, like epilepsy, that left them in potential danger of falling over the railing accidentally. Even though Mahdu had no history of depression, binge drinking or mysterious neurological disorders, and had been heard yelling at another man who was currently missing, Eria was young and scared and intimidated by authorities. I couldn't blame her for leaving.

If I were smart, I probably would too.

"So that was pretty much a dead end," I told Jack. "Even though you were ingenious."

"How did you get out without the security guy seeing you?" Ingrid asked.

"Eria went on the b-balcony and called out for him to help. He ran past where I hid behind the door and I s-slipped out. Then, I got lucky."

"Sounded like you were already lucky," I observed.

"I went to the Marker Bar and some off-duty employees were having a late night drink. After eavesdropping a while, I t-talked myself into the group. Two beers later I found out Valka and Alyce Kinkaid are l-lovers."

"What!?" Ingrid and I asked simultaneously.

Jack smiled proudly. "Yep. They don't think anyone knows but another girl who works at the s-spa says she walked in on them together and backed out before they saw her."

"Wow," I said, "So they could be conspiring-in the disappearances or simply in the cover-up. Or maybe Kinkaid's phone case was left there during a romantic encounter she wants kept secret."

"Or all of the above," Ingrid pointed out.

"The plot thickens, because once I made it to my c-cabin, Kinkaid appeared and told me that they had a t-tape of me slipping into Eria's room and, if we were running s-some kind of life insurance scam, they could help prove it."

"Intimidation tactic," I said. "She just wanted you to know they were watching you, because you were hanging with me yesterday."

"What amazes me about this whole thing is how well their c-cover-up is working. Even the few cruise employees who know about the d-disappearances, or will admit to knowing, t-tow the party line."

"Lemmings," I said.

Ingrid and Jack c.o.c.ked their heads at me.

I explained, "Most people are lemmings, following the guy in front of them, doing what they're told without question. It's a theory I consider every time I do an ad campaign."

"Except us, Bee, we're antilemmings," Jack said excitedly, bouncing on the b.a.l.l.s of his deck shoes.

"Right you are. Okay, antilemming league, how would you like a project for the day?"

I left the ship, having my cruise ID card scanned and a piece of paper pushed into my hand, giving me instructions on how to stay safe while visiting Mexico. Of course the best way to stay safe in Mexico was to stay out of Mexico which is why at the bottom of the paper it said: "Following these is no guarantee against injury or death."

Jack had told me before I left that he'd just read on the Internet that human heads were washing up on the beaches of Acapulco-apparently messages from the insurgents that they were serious about killing the tourism trade, literally.

"You don't have much cash on you, do you?" the cruise employee asked me as he handed back my card.

"Five dollars in my right shoe, five in my left, ten in my bra," I answered. "My cell phone is in my pocket."

"You're rich here, even without money. You're American. You can be ransomed. Be careful," he warned. "And good luck getting cell service."

I had to elbow my way through a ragtag group of protestors holding signs proclaiming the government a fraud, the president a cheat, tourists stupid for spending money to promote corruption, not quite that eloquently, but that was the general gist.

Elva and Howard were waiting on the corner of the filthy dock with two other cruisers, obvious in their matching Absolute Hold 'Em golf shirts and plaid Bermuda shorts. The quartet was surrounded by a bunch of skinny, ragged hoodlums brandishing knives at each other. It was only when I was running up to the mob to save my parents that I realized the gangsta wannabes were our official armed guards giving a display of their bodyguard skills. Scary.

"This is our daughter," Elva announced, pointing me out to the a.s.sembled group.

The gangstas all settled down, sheathing their knives, mostly in ankle scabbards or waist scabbards under their loose T-shirts.

"Oh, my dear," Elva exclaimed to one of the boys. "Aren't you afraid the knife will come loose and, uh, scar your manhood?"

One who apparently knew English translated for the others and they elbowed each other, hooting with laughter, the boy in question slapping Mom on the back. "Gracias, por su cuidado con mi cojones, vieja," he said.

Well, and wasn't this going to be fun?

"What did he say?" Elva asked me.

"He told you thanks for caring." I left out the mention of his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and, especially, the "old woman" part. Knife or no knife, Mom would take him on about the latter.

"You. Are. Welcome," Elva mouthed slowly.

"De nada." I told her under my breath.

"De. Nada." She enunciated again like the boy was mentally challenged. Ack.

The boy bowed his head and snickered. His friends jostled him. Dad had struck up a conversation with one of the protestors, a guy with an ugly scar that spanned his face from his left ear to above his right eye. Dad took out his wallet and handed him a five. I rushed over there, leaving Mom with her new buddies. "Dad, don't pull your wallet out like that," I whispered harshly, smiling at Scarface as I guided Dad away. "In fact you shouldn't have it at all away from the ship."