‘All I need,’ the captain had replied, eyes twinkling. ‘Now the wife, she needs a living room, a dining room, a family room, a breakfast nook, just room after room, God knows why, but me? Give me a chair and book and maybe a little TV and I’m in heaven. I’ve often thought if men really ran the world like the women claim, all the houses would be eight by ten and we’d have a lot more room in the suburbs.’
By the time crew and caterers arrived at six Freedman and McLaren had their squads and uniforms posted in the lot, helping Chilton’s men screen the arrivals, and the other plainclothes officers briefed and stationed on board.
At 6:30 they stopped at the bar in the center-deck salon before going back outside in the cold. They begged a couple of bottles of water from the young man polishing glasses, then drank them while they watched the caterer’s staff put finishing touches on white linen tables crowded with crystal and silver and fresh flowers. A fussy, hawk-nosed woman in a dark suit was following them about, occasionally moving a glass or a piece of silver an inch this way or that.
‘We’re ready,’ McLaren said.
‘Couldn’t be any readier,’ Freedman agreed, his eyes taking in the two plainclothes officers by the restrooms, then following three of Chilton’s men as they paced the salon’s circumference like caged animals. ‘Damn boat’s like an armed camp.’
‘Too much hoopla,’ McLaren said. ‘He’s not gonna show up here tonight.’
‘Nope. Which means we’re going to have to do this all over again Saturday.’
‘I got Gopher tickets Saturday. They’re playing Wisconsin.’
Freedman clucked his tongue in sympathy.
The two of them each took a gangway once the guests started to arrive, watching Chilton’s people run the sweeps, eyeballing every single person who boarded. A colossal waste of time, Freedman thought, shivering in his wool suitcoat, watching a parade of the state’s rich and richer pass through a phalanx of armed men with metal detectors as if they did it every day. Maybe they did. How would he know?
When the boat finally cast off and moved out into the river, he and McLaren started making the rounds they had worked out, alternating levels inside and out. Cold as it was, after a few circuits Freedman began to feel more comfortable outside than in. You put a six-foot-nine black man in a cheap suit on a boat with a bunch of Fortune 500 white people, and pretty soon some ditzy broad wearing his year’s salary around her neck is going to ask him to refill the water carafe. It had happened four times in the first fifteen minutes, and his patience was wearing about as thin as his self-esteem.
‘Hey, Freedman.’ Johnny McLaren was coming out the center-deck salon doors as he was heading in. ‘I was just coming to get you . . . What’s the matter with you?’
‘People keep asking me to get them drinks, that’s what’s the matter with me.’
‘Assholes. Fuck ’em.’ He pulled Freedman inside and started weaving through tables toward the dance floor. The Whipped Nipples were on this deck, playing something that sounded like a classical waltz with a salsa beat. Freedman might have liked it if they hadn’t had such a stupid name.
‘I’m not dancing with you, McLaren. You’re too short.’
‘Play nice, Freedman. I’m taking you to the trough. Hammond had the caterers set up a buffet for us security types back in the kitchen.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Not a bratwurst on it, just caviar and lobster and shit like that, but it ain’t bad.’
Captain Magnusson was making his own obligatory rounds through the salon, smiling, answering questions, looking captainesque. Freedman wondered who was steering the boat. ‘Everything as it should be, Detectives?’ he asked as they passed him.
‘Shipshape,’ McLaren answered with a little salute, staring at a wet pink splotch on the captain’s collar.
‘Pink champagne,’ the old man confided, dabbing at it with a snowy handkerchief. ‘I had an unfortunate collision with a lovely young woman and an overfilled glass.’
‘Too bad.’
‘Not at all. It was really quite invigorating. She ran smack-dab into me. Full-front.’ He had a wicked little grin for an old man. ‘I was just on my way to put this in a sink of cold water and change into a new one. See you later, gentlemen.’
Freedman and McLaren watched him walk toward the forward door of the salon as they continued past the dance floor toward the food service area.
They both stopped at the same time.
‘McLaren?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The restrooms are in the back.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He went forward.’
‘Right. Toward his cabin.’
‘So where’s he going to soak his shirt?’
McLaren closed his eyes, saw the tiny cabin with its single chair and book and narrow closet door – only the spare uniform was hanging on a hook on the wall, and why would he put it there if he had a closet to hang it in? ‘Shit,’ he exhaled softly, and then they were both moving as fast as they could without actually breaking into a run, weaving through the tables, breaking apart a cluster of giggling bridesmaids at the door, then outside to the bitter cold of the deck, right turn, and then they both started to run, the little Mick and the big black man, up toward the captain’s cabin.
Tommy Espinoza’s shift had ended three hours ago, but he was still at his desk, slurping cold coffee and hammering out commands on the computer keyboard. His eyes were raw from eleven hours at the monitor, but that’s why God made Visine.
He reached into the orange plastic jack-o’-lantern that grinned on the corner of his desk and fished out a mini Snickers bar. ‘Come on, come on . . .’ He raked his fingers through his black hair, waiting for his computer to talk to him; it finally did, in the language of a shrill alarm.
‘Damnit,’ he muttered, his fingers busy on the keyboard again.
‘Got anything for me, Tommy?’ Magozzi was standing in the doorway, a battered leather satchel slung over his shoulder.
Tommy never looked up from the screen, he just waved Magozzi over. ‘Check this out, Leo. I’m running across the damnedest thing with these Monkeewrench folks.’
By the time Freedman and McLaren burst into Captain Magnusson’s cabin, the old man had already opened the sliding door to his private head and was scrambling backward. The recliner caught him by the backs of his knees and he collapsed into it, his eyes wide, his breath coming in short little puffs. McLaren went to him while Freedman took the first look.
It was the tiniest of rooms, everything reduced to the smallest possible size the way it is on all boats. Tiny stainless steel sink, tiny mirror, a shower stall Freedman would have been hard-pressed to squeeze into. Only the toilet seat was full-size; so was the man sitting on it. He was wearing a suit, but he was naked from the waist down, pants puddled around his ankles, fat white knees spread wide, shirttails dangling between flabby thighs. His head was propped against the back wall as if he were only resting, but this one had been a messy kill. Trails of blood had coursed down from the bullet hole in his forehead, spreading on either side of his nose, filling the lines around the mouth, sliding down his neck to stain the collar of his white shirt.
Freedman had seen enough gunshot victims to know that this one hadn’t died right away. There had been some heartbeats left to account for that much blood pumping out of the relatively small hole.
He stepped aside so McLaren could see inside the narrow doorway.
‘Aw, Jesus.’ McLaren exhaled in a rush. ‘I don’t believe this. Captain? When’s the last time you used the head?’
Captain Magnusson looked up at him from his chair, blinking rapidly. ‘Oh dear. Um, yesterday, I think. No, wait. We didn’t go out yesterday. The day before, I guess.’