So far, there had been no sign of the black seaman Alvin Leeds or whatever his real name was. And it was at once too late and yet too early to go prowling about the vessel in search of him. A first-class cabin had been all there was available and, he confessed to himself, a first-class lifestyle was something he could easily get used to again. When he’d lived in England, he’d been there under the guise of a technical writer, a freelancer with a generous expense account. The generous expense account had provided for good clothes, nice weekends in the country, the whole capitalist milieu. The woman who had been assigned to pose as his wife—she’d died six months after returning to the Soviet Union—had been fun to be with, enjoyed the radically altered lifestyle as much as he.
He sipped at a vodka martini and listened to the pretty girl singer. Ephraim Vols had developed a strong liking for American music when he’d done his service in Great Britain, and this young woman not only sang the best of it with aplomb, but the pianist who was doubling as her accompanist had a wonderful touch at the keys.
He brushed a speck of lint from his new tuxedo.
She was doing a medley of Judy Garland songs, but with her own style and flair.
He lit a cigarette. The process was simple, really. He had until they were a day or so out of New York to set the thing up. He would get hold of Leeds and somehow get the truth serum into him and obtain the location of the ampule from the man. Vols doubted that in this case killing could be avoided. The logical thing was to somehow get Leeds’s body over the side just before they hit New York so the missing crewman wouldn’t be noticed until after the passengers had gotten off and through customs. Getting the ampule through customs might prove interesting in itself, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. And besides, Anna would be there to work out an escape route—he hoped not to Cuba because he couldn’t stand people like Castro—and she’d probably attack the customs problem for him. And, there was always the possibility that Alvin Leeds wasn’t the American agent, but he’d wagered that Leeds was and his gut-level reactions were rarely wrong.
Vols tried putting the thing out of his head, his eyes scanning the crowd of listeners. There were plenty of unattached women, it appeared. His eyes kept going back to the pretty young woman who was singing, this Jennifer Hall. He wondered, a little more than casually, if she and the pianist—a good-looking fellow in a rough and tumble sort of way-were an item.
There was only one way to find out; and, the more he blended in with the ordinary life of the vessel, the more unnoticed he would be.
She finished with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” if that was its proper name, and the audience burst into applause. Vols stood and applauded loudly, others standing to applaud as well. The pianist stood and applauded for her too. And Ephraim Vols smiled. The girl actually seemed to be blushing.
Where, these days, did one find a girl who did that?
A waiter was trying to pass and Vols pulled a bill from his pocket. “Please ask the young lady if she’d be good enough to join me for a drink, would you?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Vols sat down and remembered his cigarette. The pianist had taken a break as well and Vols watched as the pretty girl was stopped by the waiter. The waiter gestured toward Vols’s table. The girl and the pianist exchanged a hurried remark and then both of them started toward his table. Perhaps they were an item at that.
Vols stood as they neared. “I must congratulate you, Miss Hall. You have such a beautiful voice. Of course my invitation for a drink is extended to your accompanist as well. Mr. Cross, is it?”
“Hi,” Cross said, extending his hand. There was strength in the hand, Vols thought absently. From playing the piano with such vigor, perhaps.
“Please. Join me. Both of you. I’m traveling alone and there’s a certain melancholy the first night at sea.”
He watched the girl as she looked at the man. The man’s eyes seemed to shrug. “If Miss Hall’s willing, I’d be happy to,” the pianist answered.
“Bravo! Please. Sit down. Order whatever you’d like.”
Vols hailed a waiter and the girl ordered a gin and tonic, the man a Michelob, an American beer. The man lit a cigarette. Vols lit a fresh one. “Have you two been working together long? That’s a stupid question. You work together so well, the answer is obvious.”
The girl laughed. The man exhaled smoke. “We just met this morning. Abe’s the replacement for the pianist who usually worked on the Empress, and when the pianist left, the singer left. I was returning home and I was asked to sing my way across.”
“Well, dash! That’s amazing. You must have a natural musical affinity.”
“Maybe we do,” she answered.
“You, Mr. Cross. I can imagine how it must be to capture all the nuances of a song in the way Miss Hall works. You must be a true musical genius.”
“My mother, then my aunt, they made me study piano. So I guess I’ve been at it long enough to get the hang of it. Thanks.” “I should be thanking you-both of you-for such wonderful music. I know where I’ll be spending all my evenings while aboard!”
The drinks arrived. Abe Cross. There was something in the name that reminded Vols of something, something he’d read or been told about. It wasn’t something official, work related, or he would have remembered it easily. His memory worked that way. “Mr. Cross. I know this is beastly rude, but your name. I know I’ve heard it somewhere before.”
“Could be. Small world sometimes.”
“Cross—something struck me strange about it—I’ve got it. My word.”
“The airline hijacking, right?”
The girl looked at Cross, startlement in her eyes.
Vols waded in. He didn’t know why. “He’s not a hijacker, my dear. He was a victim. The only survivor, if I recall.”
“You recall okay,” Cross said, taking a sip of his beer. “But that’s water under the bridge.”
“What happened?” Jennifer Hall asked.
Cross looked uncomfortable. Again, Vols waded in. “It was a terrorist thing, if I remember correctly. Nasty business. And painful to talk about too, I’d think. Forgive me for mentioning it. I had no desire to bring up unpleasant memories. My job requires a lot of memory work and it sometimes filters over into my private life. ”
He’d given Cross a ball to run with. Cross took it. “What do you do? I mean, you know what we do.” Cross smiled.
“Yes. I suppose that’s only fair, isn’t it? I’m a journalist of sorts.” He was using the old cover with the new identity because there hadn’t been time to construct a new cover. “I’m terrible! I forgot to introduce myself. I’d say I really did need this holiday.” He laughed, the girl singer and the pianist laughing too, the tension easing a little because of his faux pas. “I’m Andrew Comstock. And I am a journalist. Technical writer, really. If you’ll keep it under your hat—the attention would keep me from getting my work done—I’m engaged in a piece on ocean technology and this is a bit of a working holiday. I’m catching a flavor for the assignment and getting some information on how ocean-going liners are run these days. Before I print anything, of course, I’ll ask the line’s permission.”
“Sounds cool,” Cross observed.
“Are you going all the way to Japan, Mr. Comstock?” Jennifer Hall asked over her glass.
“No, don’t I wish, though,” Vols answered. “As a matter of fact, I booked passage to San Francisco only. I couldn’t pass up the Panama Canal and all that.” He extinguished his cigarette. “I have a capital idea. And I know you’ll tell me if I’m overstepping my bounds here, but I find myself famished. Would you both care to join me for a bite to eat. This was your last show.”
“I am hungry. ”Jennifer Hall smiled, looking up at Abe Cross.
“There’s a method to my madness, I’ll confess. I love the company of a pretty girl and, if memory serves again, Mr. Cross, you were some sort of officer in the United States Navy, weren’t you?”
“Some sort,” Cross said, sipping at his beer again.
“Mind if I pump you a few moments for some technical jargon and what-have-you? Make my job terribly easier. Really it would.”
Cross hesitated a moment. “All right. I could use a sandwich or something.”
“Outstanding, as you Americans say.”
“Yeah. We say that all the time.”
“I’ll signal the waiter.”
Vols had remembered something else during the course of the conversation, the reason he’d remembered the hijacking incident in the first place. The solitary man to have gotten away was later revealed to have been a SEAL, the American equivalent of his own country’s naval Spetznas.
Was the replacement of the ship’s pianist just a coincidence? Or was this Cross fellow here for a purpose? “Ahh. We’d like three menus, please—but just to read.” The girl laughed, but the pianist—Cross—didn’t laugh at all.