Death on the Mississippi Read online

  They had spent the last hour touring the Mississippi with an exuberant Dalton as their guide. Lyon was impressed, and even Bea, whose admiration of Dalton was far from gigantic, had seemed a little awed at the lavish accoutrements.

  They had begun with the pilot house (“bridge” in Dalton’s nomenclature) located above the saloon. The state-of-the-art electronic equipment would have rivaled the fire-control center on the aircraft carrier Enterprise. They had been lectured on each instrument’s capabilities and functions, but to Lyon the descriptions had merged into a mass of amperage, bytes, and K memories. The final result of all the gadgetry seemed to be to allow someone to steer downstream. Lyon recalled that Mark Twain’s river pilots performed these same duties on the Mississippi with far less equipment.

  Bristling antennas and radar discs on the high mast aided the bridge instruments or else allowed Dalton to receive direct television reception from Bulgaria.

  Living accommodations on the boat were spacious and lavishly decorated. The main saloon had a three-sided panoramic view of the water through large floor-to-ceiling windows. Privacy was assured by remote-controlled drapes that slid soundlessly across the windows at a touch of a button. Behind the saloon was a formal dining room and a compact but fully equipped galley. Four staterooms, each with private bath, completed the living quarters.

  As they toured through the houseboat, Bea would occasionally turn to Lyon and purse her lips. He knew that her staunch New England heritage rebelled at this surfeit of ostentation.

  “Brunch on the poop deck, everyone,” Pandora said with a wave toward the stern. “Or whatever that place back there is called.”

  A buffet had been laid out under the awning, and Bobby Douglas, the ship’s professional mate, was preparing Bloody Marys at a small bar.

  Dalton steered Lyon to the bar. “Bobby’s Bloodys will either kill you or cure you. Either way, they may blow the top of your head off.” He handed Lyon a tall frosted glass.

  Lyon sipped the drink. “Strong, very strong, but good.”

  “Douglas has done it again. Our mate was one of Florida’s best drug runners until he took a bullet in the leg fired by an angry Colombian.”

  Lyon judged the mate to be on the good side of thirty. He had sun-bleached brown hair that had turned nearly blond. His tan was of the deep variety that wouldn’t fade in the darkest of winters. He wore starched white duck pants, and a T-shirt that revealed firm biceps. The only fault in his near-perfect physique was a slight limp.

  “Let’s take her downstream and over to the job, Bobby,” Dalton said as they joined Bea and Pandora at a table. Bobby Douglas nodded, set a pitcher of Bloody Marys on the table, and climbed a ladder to the saloon roof. In minutes they were heading slowly down the Connecticut River toward Long Island Sound.

  Dalton took a large sip from his drink. “I am going to show you the newest down-and-dirty deal, which is also going to make us one hell of a lot of money.”

  Bea arched an eyebrow. “Legally?”

  Dalton smiled. “But of course. It has to do with a magnificent joke called time sharing. We’re completely refurbishing the old Pincus resort, all the rooms, cottages, and recreational facilities. When finished we shall convert to condominiums and sell time shares.”

  “That’s not unusual,” Lyon said. “Where’s the joke?”

  “Dwell on these figures a moment. If I remodel one of the waterside cottages with common interest in the other facilities, I can sell it for maybe two hundred thou, right?”

  “That seems to be about market around here,” Lyon said.

  “Now, instead of selling the cottage to one owner, we’re going to sell weekly shares at ten thousand per. If my math is correct, that comes to roughly half a mil or more than double what I can get from a single-owner sale. It’s capitalism at its best,” Dalton said as he raised the pitcher of drinks to pour.

  Lyon’s world exploded in a film of red.

  “Incoming!” was Dalton’s hoarse yell.

  Although it had been years since he had heard the word, Lyon reacted instinctively. He catapulted himself out of his chair and across the table, while his right arm grasped Bea’s shoulder and pulled her forward and under him. They tumbled into a heap on the deck. He scrabbled forward, clutching Bea as he sought the protection of the deck housing.

  The shot sound echoed across the water.

  Bea’s face was bathed in red. He frantically ran his fingers across her cheeks and back into her hairline searching for the wound.

  Her tongue flicked across her lips. “Bloody Marys,” she said. “And you’re wearing them too.”

  The shadow of Bobby Douglas fell across their bodies as he hunched over at the top of the ladder that led to the deck house roof. He leaped, landed on the balls of his feet, and quickly rolled over to the protection of the rail. He held an automatic handgun in each fist and tossed one across the deck to Dalton, who deftly caught it.

  “Not funny, guys,” Bea said.

  “Did you see a muzzle flash?” Dalton asked Bobby as he ignored Bea’s remark.

  “Not a thing. I was watching the channel markers.”

  “Just the one shot that shattered the pitcher,” Dalton said. “We must be out of range, but take us out another thousand yards, Bobby. They won’t be able to get us with anything but a cannon.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bobby Douglas ran along the seaward side of the houseboat and climbed back to the pilot house.

  Pandora began to whimper in the corner. “They’re going to kill us,” she choked. “I know they are.”

  “It was probably some kids plinking in the marsh,” Dalton said.

  “With a thirty-thirty?” Lyon asked.

  “I think he’s funning us and it’s damn sadistic,” Bea said.

  Dalton tried to smile. “One of my lesser pranks.”

  Pan stood, glaring down at her husband. “It’s not one of his jokes. They’re trying to get him and he won’t do anything about it.”

  “Listen, space bunny,” Dalton said as he reached up and grasped her hand and pulled her back to the deck next to him. “They’re only trying to scare us.”

  She buried her head in his shoulder. “Well, they’re succeeding.”

  “Are you going to radio the Coast Guard and State Police?” Lyon asked.

  Dalton shook his head. “No way. Questions like that I don’t need.”

  Lyon stood in the pilot house with Bobby Douglas as the mate expertly navigated the cumbersome craft around several small rock islands. He handed Lyon a pair of binoculars. “Off the bow at two o’clock is where the resort property begins.”

  “Thanks.” Lyon adjusted the field on the glasses and swept the shoreline until he focused on a man and woman walking down a broad expanse of lawn to the pier. In the background was a large main building, surrounded by a phalanx of cottages, outbuildings, tennis courts, gardens, and a huge swimming pool. Workmen occupied scaffoldings or operated construction equipment as the task of refurbishing continued. “Who’s that?” Lyon gestured toward the two people who now waited expectantly at the edge of the dock.

  Douglas throttled back on the engines and began to work the craft toward the pier. “The big guy is Sam Idelweise, the construction foreman. He’s the only one around here that does any real work. The Amazon in the bikini is …”

  “I’ve met Miss Loops,” Lyon said and wished that she hadn’t chosen a string bathing suit as greeting attire.

  As the houseboat pulled parallel to the pier, but before Dalton had a chance to secure the bow line, Sam Idelweise jumped aboard and began an earnest dialogue with him.

  “Jesus Christ! You’d think Sam could hold his problems until we docked this scow,” Douglas said as he killed the engines and limped forward to complete the docking.

  “Hi there,” Katrina said to Lyon. She reached for his hand as he took the long step to the dock. Bea smiled tightly and climbed ashore unaided.

  Dalton shook his head in an obvious end to his conversation with I
delweise and gestured to Lyon to join them. “Wentworths, meet Sam Idelweise. He looks like a drunken longshoreman, but he’s actually our construction foreman. Can’t build a damn thing, but he can smell a union organizer a mile away.”

  The large man wearing muddy work boots and dusty pants waved at them.

  “Kat,” Dalton continued. “Take the Wentworths off and do your thing.”

  Katrina gestured toward a small cottage at the water’s edge. “The bedroom’s finished in that one,” she said as she took Lyon’s hand and led him across the grassy slope toward the building.

  “Am I supposed to watch?” Bea asked with an edge to her voice.

  “I’d love to have you participate,” Katrina said with a laugh. “You might learn something from my technique.”

  “I truly doubt that there is anything new in that area,” Bea said.

  Katrina turned from Lyon to look back at Bea. “My God! I just realized what you’re thinking. It never occurred to me that you’d believe Dalton.”

  “It seemed in character.”

  “Senator Wentworth, I’m the sales manager for the Pincus Resort. Dalton thought it would be fun if you heard our sales pitch. When it comes to sex, why, sometimes I don’t even put out on the first date.” She hurried ahead of them toward the cottage.

  “Pity,” Lyon said.

  Bea glared.

  Katrina Loops seemed able to slip into her marketing persona with ease. She took Dalton’s command literally and subjected them to the full sales presentation. Bea, whose own sense of the dramatic had been honed by years on the political scene, was able to appreciate the fine-tuned orchestration the tall Katrina presented. The sales manager’s approach featured a subtle sexuality directed toward Lyon, combined with an inchoate sister-bonding superiority with Bea. This barely perceptible sexist approach manipulated the targets (the potential customer, she informed them in an aside) in such a manner that both male and female responded to the sales message in different but positive ways.

  Bea could not approve of such sexist manipulation, but realized that it worked. Although she lived in a beautiful home only a few miles away, she found herself tempted to sign a contract.

  “I’ll sign. I’ll buy one,” Lyon said.

  “Wow, you’re good at this,” Bea had to admit.

  “It pays pretty damn well,” Katrina said. “I get a nice commission on each unit I sell personally, and an override on any sold by my sales people. Let me tell you, it sure beats waiting tables.” She glanced at her wristwatch. “Listen, I have an appointment with a live one in two minutes. We’ve completed the tour except for the main building. Would you mind awfully if I left you on your own for a while? Dalton says cocktails on the esplanade in an hour.”

  “We can amuse ourselves,” Bea said. “Go right ahead.”

  Hand in hand they ambled along the walkways that wound past gardens and pools. Gas lamps had been installed in strategic positions so that at night their flickering light would cast leaf shadows along the paths. The walks had been constructed in such a way that from any point there was a water view.

  They turned a corner to find themselves facing one of the small cottages that was undergoing complete restoration. Three shirtless young men wearing nail aprons were shingling the roof. Sam Idelweise stood on the ground looking up at their progress as he shook his head in disbelief.

  “Grip the goddamn hammer by the base of the handle, you cookie cutters,” he yelled up to his young crew. “God save me from college kids pretending to be summer carpenters,” he said to the Wentworths.

  “They look pretty good to me,” Bea said. “That one in the middle has great pecs.” Idelweise looked puzzled and Lyon looked stricken. “Two can play this game, Wentworth,” she said.

  “I need to talk.” Sam directed them to a bench far enough from the cottage to give them privacy.

  “You want to speak to me because I’m Dalton’s friend,” Lyon said. He was getting used to the role.

  “Jesus, yes. You got it right. Dalton said you were quick on the uptake.”

  “You want to talk about money.”

  “How does he do that?” Idelweise asked Bea.

  “Practice,” she replied.

  “You’ve got to get through to that guy and wake the asshole up. This is one hell of a sweet job, but he’s fucking it up.”

  “Why don’t you just leave this flutching job and work some flutching place else?” Bea said sweetly.

  “Sorry about my language, Mrs. Wentworth. You get used to talking like that in construction. I can’t leave this job. I got a piece of the action and my name is on some of the paper.”

  “In the event of chapter eleven or worse, they can’t pierce the corporate veil to touch your personal assets,” Bea said.

  “I don’t know about any veil crap, but I do know that yours truly and his house and personal bank accounts is on at least two notes that asshole talked me into signing.”

  “How can they take your house if this is a corporation?” Lyon asked.

  “They certainly can if Sam signed personally in addition to signing as a corporate officer,” Bea said. “Banks love the additional protection of getting personal notes as guarantees.”

  “They called it a ‘personal inducement success factor.’ I call it nabbing my nuts.”

  “That has a certain vivid alliteration to it,” Bea said.

  The construction foreman’s voice dropped to a whisper as he looked past them toward the water. “I’ll tell you a couple things about my house. My wife and I built it with our own hands. It took us nearly three years working nights, weekends, and vacations. The kids were small then and I wasn’t even a journeyman carpenter, so money was short. I dug the foundation by hand. I mean with a pick and shovel. Our sweat built that place for twenty thousand and now it’s worth a quarter of a million. I got two kids, one will come to work with me next year and learn the business that way. The other one is real bright, college material, and is going to be a civil engineer or maybe even an architect. A second mortgage on that house is going to pay for that kid’s college, no matter where she wants to go. Dalton isn’t taking that away from me with his asshole games and toilet barge boat, and that’s a promise.”

  “Doesn’t Pan have any influence with him?”

  “She’s a fucking space cadet.”

  “She keeps insisting that someone is threatening Dalton,” Bea said. “And today someone shot at the boat.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Sam snorted. “The guy’s fucking me, his wife in more ways than one, Kat Loops, the public at large, and anyone else stupid enough to get near the loony bastard.”

  “You sound pissed,” Lyon said.

  “Mister, I’m not just pissed. I got complete kidney malfunction.”

  “Hey, you guys!” Pan Turman ran up the walk toward them.

  “Oh, Christ,” Sam said. “It’s time to play Dalton says.”

  “Dalton says we’re all to go to the ballroom,” Pan said breathlessly as she tried to regain her wind. “He has something to show us.”

  “Does Dalton say who’s to supervise this fucking job while we play his damn games?” Sam said.

  Pan hooked the foreman’s arm in hers as she led him up the path toward the large building. “Oh, Sam, you’re such a grizzly bear.”

  The southerly wall of the ballroom was mostly glass, with sliding panels that opened out onto a wide veranda that overlooked Long Island Sound. The ceiling was a maze of molded figure reliefs, many parts of which had broken off and fallen to the cluttered floor. The walls were water stained, and plaster, leaves, and old newspapers littered the floor.

  The restoration was well under way. Scaffolding reached high up the walls and contained several painters who were carefully chipping and sanding the orante molding. Lyon noticed that several of the younger workers had Walkman radios either hooked to their belts or sitting nearby. Luckily they used earphones so that the sound of heavy-metal rock was mercifully absent.

  “T
his is my favorite room in the whole resort,” Pan said. “Later I’ll show you the decorator’s drawings of what it will look like when it’s finished.”

  Sam Idelweise began to impatiently riffle through a sheaf of blueprints. “Where’s laughing boy?” he muttered.

  “I’ll go get him,” Pan said and hurried out.

  “Oh, my God!” It was a strangulated gasp from one of the men working near the ceiling. The young painter scrambled down the ladder. He wore a Grateful Dead T-shirt, paint-splattered, cutoff jeans, and carried a blaster with an earplug. He reached the bottom of the ladder and faced them with a look of horror on his face. “It’s coming! Jesus, they’re finally on their way.”

  Sam scowled at the young worker. “No breaks for the second coming, Harold. You wait for lunch like everyone else.”

  Harold ripped the earplug from his head and threw it at Idelweise. His mouth opened and closed several times before words were articulated. “I don’t care what you say. It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you understand? The missiles are on their way!”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?” Idelweise shot back.

  “It’s all on the radio. Listen!” Harold turned up the set’s volume.

  All work stopped as a sonorous announcer’s voice filled the ballroom. “The Pentagon has verified that countless missiles have been launched from areas throughout the Soviet Union. Early-warning satellites indicated that this occurred sixteen minutes ago.” The announcer’s hysteria was becoming obvious and beginning to affect everyone in the ballroom.

  “Civil Defense officials recommend that everyone stay away from windows and … It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s all over. This is the end.”

  The broadcast abruptly terminated.

  Sam Idelweise strode purposely across the room. “No way! No way, José, do I believe this shit.” His booted foot lashed out and smashed into the radio.

  The appliance’s owner looked dispassionately down at the ruined set and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”

  Sam shook the young painter by the shoulders. “Snap out of it, kid. That bastard Dalton is up to another of his …”