Finally Brandino spoke to the Captain again. “If you can’t provide security, then I shall provide it for myself,” he told him. He produced a large Luger and held it under Maldemerde’s nose. “I’m putting you on notice!” he declared. “I’ll use this and ask questions later if it becomes necessary!” Brandino put the gun back in his pocket, turned on his heel, and walked swiftly away from us.
“He means it,” I decided.
“I know.” Click-click. The Captain wiped his brow. “He’s a violent man.”
There was a sudden crackle from the P.A. system, and then three voices were clearly heard by all those on board the Lascivia. It took me a minute to recognize them as belonging to Mrs. North, Mrs. South, and Dr. Quotabusta.
“Are you sure your husband won’t come back for anything?” Dr. Quotabusta was asking.
“He’s in the middle of his bridge game,” Mrs. North reassured him.
“Neither of our husbands would break up the game for anything,” Mrs. South added. “So take off your loincloth and make yourself at home.”
“You’re both scratching,” Dr. Quotabusta commented.
“So are you,” Mrs. North replied.
“I know.” He sighed with resignation.
“Do you like it when I do this?” Mrs. North wanted to know.
“Quit hogging it!” Mrs. South complained.
“I’b dod hohoggig id.”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.” Mrs. South giggled.
“I wish you Wouldn’t distract her,” Dr. Quotabusta said.
“Look, why don’t we arrange things this way,” Mrs. South suggested. “You stretch out and I’ll sit right here over you, and he can play with my breasts while he’s giving it to you and you’re licking me.”
The Captain and I had been staring at each other. Now we broke the gaze and looked around us. All over the deck people were listening hard to the dialogue coming over the P.A. system. A few of them had their hands cupped to their ears.
“Now you get on the bottom,” Mrs. North suggested. “And I’ll play with you while the doctor takes my temperature.”
“It would break the thermometer!” Dr. Quotabusta panted.
“Not that thermometer!” Mrs. North told him admiringly.
“I always wanted to play ‘Doctor’ with a real doctor,” Mrs. South gasped.
I finally woke up. “That can be heard all over the ship! Including the card lounge!” I realized. I started off at a run and Maldemerde followed me.
“You’re ten times the man Wilbur ever was,” Mrs. North could be heard exulting over the loudspeaker as I entered the card salon.
Captain Maldemerde came in behind me, reluctant and timid, obviously poised to bolt at the first sign of violence. Click-click.
“Wilbur couldn’t even take care of one woman, let alone two!” Mrs. North added.
“Can't that damn thing be turned down?” Wilbur North greeted the Captain. “It’s so distracting, I damn near reneged!”
“Is that too hard for you, Mrs. South?” Dr. Quotabusta inquired.
“No-no-no-no-no! . . . Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes! . . .”
“Hmmmm.” South studied his cards, oblivious.
Mister Jewish appeared in the doorway to the lounge. He’d obviously come on the run, but he cooled it now and came over to the Captain and addressed him in a low voice. “What’s happening, sir?” he asked.
“East-West are playing five diamonds. Looks like they’ll make it.”
“I mean North and South, sir. The loudspeaker-—?”
“So far it doesn’t seem to have made a dent.” Maldemerde shrugged.
“Good. Gorilla will have it cut out in a minute, sir. Somebody planted a mike in the stateroom and plugged it into the P.A.” Mister Jewish looked straight at me. There was no doubt who he thought the culprit was.
“That’s it! Lie on top of each other,” Dr. Quotabusta was saying. “You’ve got the positioning right now. Just follow the rhythm. In and out . . . Now you ...Up and down...And you...pull and push... Her now . . .”
The loudspeaker abruptly went dead.
“Thank goodness!” North said. “Now maybe I can concentrate.”
“Don’t know why they have to broadcast those soap operas anyway,” South grumbled, pulling in a trick.
“Excuse me, sir.” A steward materialized beside Mister Jewish. “I have a package for Mr. West.”
“That’s him over there.” Mister JeWish pointed. “The dummy.”
“Sir?”
“In the bridge game, sailor. The one with the cards spread out in front of him. Just give it to him.”
The sailor did as he was told. West opened the package without taking his eyes off the play. Some photographs spilled out of the wrappings onto the carpeting. The Captain and I both knelt to pick them up.
We bumped heads as we saw them. Click-click. The pictures were of Mrs. West and Mario Brandino. They would have brought twenty bucks a dozen easy under the counter in a Forty-second Street porno shop.
In the one I was holding, the slender brunette with those long nipples and that short-cropped hair was straddling Brandino’s lap with her head thrown back. The Mafioso’s mouth was fastened to one of her bare breasts. Despite the blur of motion where they were joined, their aroused genitals were clearly exposed. It was evident that this old gangster’s shotgun wasn’t sawed off!
The two of them were also nude in the photo the Captain had retrieved. Click-click. In that one, Mrs. West was on her hands and knees with Brandino mounting her from behind. The look on his face was determined, on her, ecstatic.
The other pictures were even more raunchy. West stared at them open-mouthed. Slowly, his face turned very red.
“We made it, partner.” East broke into his concentration. “Five diamonds. We're vulnerable.”
“Do you still have that gun of yours?” West asked North quietly.
“Sure.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“All right.” North produced the gun and handed it to him. “It’s your deal,” he reminded West.
“What are you going to do?” Click-click! The Captain was alarmed.
“Kill the man who cuckolded me!” West said through clenched teeth. “Just as soon as I play out this deal,” he added, shuffling the cards.
Concerned about the possibility of a shootout, I slipped out of the card salon. With all the crazy things that had already happened on board, the last thing the Lascivia needed was a gun duel between a gangster bigwig and a cuckolded bridge nut. I went hunting for Mario Brandino, hoping to persuade him to lie low for awhile until West cooled oft.
I tracked Brandino down in the steam room and explained the situation to him. “The guy is pretty overwrought,” I told him. “So maybe if you could just stay out of his way. . . .”
“Suppose I can’t?”
“I just don’t want to see anybody get killed,” I pleaded. “You or him.”
“I won’t get killed,” Brandino assured me with chilling confidence.
“And him?”
“I’ll try,” he promised. “I don’t want to hurt him. But if he comes after me. . . .”
I followed Brandino out of the steam room. He stretched out on a massage table and nodded to the masseur that he was ready. “Somebody’s out to get me,” Brandino mused. “First the holes in the condoms, and now the pictures. Who the hell took those pictures anyway?”
I didn’t answer him. The masseur had distracted me. He’d started over to give Brandino his rubdown, and then halted halfway to the table. He just stood where he’d stopped for a full minute. He just stood there and scratched his hands.
Not his crotch! His hands! And this obviously wasn’t the first scratching they'd undergone. Both of his hands were raw and red from being scratched!
I thought about that all through the massage he gave Brandino. Every so often he’d stop to scratch his hands again. It wasn’t until the end of the massage that something clicked in my head.