The rnasseur was sprinkling talcum powder ever Brandino’s groin and dusting it with the feathered gismo he used for that purpose. First he’d pour the powder into the palm of his hand, and then he’d let it fall in a cloud onto Brandino’s crotch. By the time he was working it in with the duster, my hunch was firm.
“What is that stuff?” I asked him.
“A special kind of talcum powder. It’s made exclusively for use aboard the Lascivia,” the masseur told me. “To be used only on this most delicate area of the body,” he explained.
“Is it used in the ladies’ massage parlor, too?”
“Oh yes. And it’s in the dispensers in all the passengers’ private lavatories.”
Now that he mentioned it, I remembered. The dispenser in my own john had printed instructions on it that suggested it be used to dust the inside of underwear before the underwear was donned. . . . And the masseur was scratching his hands!
“Excuse me!” I grabbed up a container of the powder, zipped into the locker room, pulled on my clothes, and headed for the infirmary on the double.
I was in luck. Dr. Quotabusta had finished his double-diddling and was back at work. I told him what I suspected. He got busy with various chemicals, test tubes, slides and a microscope.
In less than an hour, he completed his tests. The results bore out my hunch. He looked at me half with relief, and half with vexation at himself for not having guessed what lay behind the epidemic he’d feared was venereal.
“Itching powder!” I couldn’t help laughing.
“I guess you could call it that,” he agreed. “But it’s no simple compound. It’s a very sophisticated type of itching powder. Nothing like what they sell for practical jokes in those novelty stores. It took a top-notch chemist to come up with this formula!” He thought a moment. “The question is, how did it get into such wide use aboard this ship? If it’s in the cabin dispensers as well as being used in the massage parlors, then somebody must have substituted the stuff for the entire shipment of talcum we took on board.”
“Looks like it.”
“Only a crew member could have managed that,” Dr. Quotabusta deduced. “I guess we’d better go see the Captain,” he added.
Captain Maldemerde wasn’t in the wheelhouse. The officer on duty said he'd gone down to the wardroom for some coffee. Dr. Quotabusta and I proceeded to the wardroom.
When we entered, I felt something poke me hard in the back. The door was slammed shut hard behind us. I swiveled around to find myself looking into the business end of a rifle. It was one of the guns from the ship’s arsenal, usually used for skeet shooting by the Lascivia’s passengers.
Dr. Quotabusta was also on the skeet end of the gun. “Benedict!” he demanded of the burly stoker holding it, “what the hell is happening?”
“That Maldemerde prick has gone too far! We’re taking over this tub!”
Click-click. The Captain was flattened out against the wall on the far side of the wardroom. His eyes rolled with terror. Click-click. The second clicking was his teeth chattering. Between him and us, besides the two men with the rifles, were a half-dozen or so sailors armed with makeshift clubs, knives, and a side-arm or two. They were very angry, and he was obviously the target of that anger. Click-click.
“Benedict!” Dr. Quotabusta addressed the gun-wielding stoker again. “What the hell is this all about?”
“Toilet paper.”
“Toilet paper?”
“Toilet paper!” Benedict repeated, backed up by a hostile chorus of agreement from his fellow mutineers.
Click-click. Captain Maldemerde moaned.
“What about toilet paper?” Dr. Quotabusta was mystified.
“Ask him!” Benedict growled, shaking a fist at the Captain.
“The privileges of rank!” Maldemerde babbled hysterically. Click-click.
“What’s toilet paper got to do with it?” Dr. Quotabusta was still perplexed.
“There was a shortage of it in Bali,” Benedict told him.
“It was a humanitarian act!” the Captain sniffled. Click-click. “The natives were toilet paper-less!”
“Natives my ass!” Benedict snarled. “The bastard sold it to a luxury hotel!”
“Sold what?”
“The entire stock of the crew’s toilet paper. That’s what! The little pisspot made the deal and had it unloaded in Bali before we even knew what was happening. All the crew’s toilet paper except what was on the rollers at the time. You can bet he made a pretty penny on it, too!”
“But I was down in the hold just this morning,” Dr. Quotabusta remembered. “There were at least a hundred cartons of toilet paper stacked up there. I saw them. Triple-ply and Grade-A soft, too!”
“That’s for the passengers and officers,” Benedict told him. “The crew’s was Single-ply and Grade-C rough. You oughta know that, Doc. The worst ain’t none too bad for the crew on any ship Maldemerde’s running. But we don’t even get that as of today.”
“What happened today?”
“The last of the paper in the crew’s heads ran out. And you know what this bastard ordered issued to replace it?”
“What?”
“Palm tree leaves, that’s what!”
“With prickles!” one of the other mutineers snarled bitterly.
“Takes the skin right off!” Benedict said. “The little prick had them leaves thrown in with the deal he made for the toilet paper! By tomorrow there won’t be a crewman aboard can sit down. Myself, I got piles, which is why I ain’t even thinking twice about droppin’ Maldemerde over the side!” ”
“I’ve got some Preparation H in the Dispensary, Dr. Quotabusta offered.
“Shove it up your ass!”
The door to the wardroom was Hung open. Mister Jewish and Chief Engineer Gorilla were ushered in by four more armed sailors. Behind the sailors, Ensign Mayday appeared.
It was a new Ensign Mayday. The nervous, bumbling youth was gone. He’d been replaced by a tough, hard cat whose orders were readily obeyed.
“Tie their hands behind their backs,” he told the mutineers authoritatively.
“Mister Jewish, too, sir?” Benedict posed the question with respect.
“Yes. That’s the way he wants it,” Mayday snapped. I stared at Mayday. The truth began to take shape in my mind. Mister Jewish voiced it for me.
“You people are being used, Benedict!” he told the stoker. “You’re being used to scuttle this cruise. That's been Mayday’s motive all along! He doesn’t care about the treatment of the crew. He’s a paid saboteur! And a murderer, too!”
“Serious allegations,” Ensign Mayday said. “But of course you can’t prove any of them.”
“What about this mutiny? You’re the instigator of it! That’s a fact!”
“What mutiny? Do you know anything about any mutiny, Benedict?” Ensign Mayday inquired.
“No, sir. The Cap’n’s gonna have an accident. That’s all I know. A couple of other accidents, too, I guess.”
Benedict turned to Mister Jewish and addressed him respectfully. “Throw in with us, Mister Jewish, sir,” he said in a pleading tone.
“I can’t go along with a mutiny!”
“Let’s get moving,” Ensign Mayday commanded. “We can dump them off the foredeck while the passengers are at dinner. That way nobody will see.”
“You’ll never get away with it!” Mister Jewish protested.
“Yes, we will,” Mayday assured him. “Nobody will even know about it except those involved. The Second Mate will take over command. That will be a break for him, and he won’t ask too many questions. Sure, it will look suspicious, the five of you disappearing, but nobody will be able to prove anything.”