"In Marseilles harbor," said Madison, "there is a prison called the Chateau d'If. The Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned there as a young sailor, according to this author, Alexandre Dumas. From thence he rose to a power amongst nations and was, in fact, an outlaw beyond compare. He is quite immortal. I want to see if there actually was a cell there with a tunnel like the one described. And it was terribly nice of you to send Teenie down to ask me. She certainly is a sweet, innocent child, isn't she?"
That did it. I went to the rail.
"Always face downwind," the sports director said, wiping me off. "You should have told the steward you felt queasy. Once you're really seasick, Dramamine doesn't do a (bleeped) bit of good. You get rid of it too fast. A few laps around the deck now and you'll feel fine."
It wasn't a very successful voyage to Marseilles. In the first place the French, while very glad to gouge any port dues they could, were unable to understand why we wanted to visit the Chateau d'If.
Through an interpreter, for none of us spoke French, the port director told us that if we weren't terrorists, he had no right to let people from the yacht wander around the town or harbor. There was a slim chance, though. If we could prove we were heroin smugglers, the port was wide open to us.
Madison was kicking the edge of a desk despondently. Teenie said we might as well go back aboard. She had some new pop records she'd got in Madrid and we could lie in bed and listen to them. That made me desperate. I beckoned the director into the next room. Through the interpreter I asked for a black fluorescent light. When I got it, I bared my chest and turned it on. They stared at the glowing letters, Rockecenter Family Spi.
The interpreter told them what it said.
Suddenly the port director was on his knees, kissing the cuffs of my pants. He was muttering and moaning.
"He says," said the interpreter, "you should have told him this at once. He had no idea you worked for the man who controls the world's illicit drug traffic. His slight against the Rockecenter name is unforgivable. He will now have to resign his post and end his days in disgrace."
The French are so emotional, so extreme!"No, no," I said, "it will be enough if you just let us come ashore and walk around and also visit the Chateau d'If."
The director began to weep with relief. He muttered something.
"He wants to assure you," said the interpreter, "that the illegal heroin traffic is maintained at its highest peak and hopes you won't report otherwise."
"I'll take his word for it," I said.
The port director got the interpretation and seized my hands, kissing them. He said something else, pleadingly.
The interpreter said, "He wants you to come to dinner at his house this evening. He has a beautiful wife and daughter and insists you spend the night and sleep with them both."
I opened my mouth to protest and the interpreter quickly shook his head warningly. "Please don't refuse him. You will insult the French national honor. It would put him in a terrible position. He would have a nervous breakdown."
Wearily, I had to let Teenie and Madison visit the Chateau prison while I went to dinner.
All in all, Marseilles was a terrible experience. I left sharing wholeheartedly the opinions of my steward about the French.
The wife was fat and the daughter had a harelip.
Things like that tend to color your attitude.
We sailed the following morning. The sea was rough and I lay stricken in my bunk. The captain and the sports director came in.
"I am making a ship inspection," said Captain Bitts, "to make sure the French haven't stolen us blind." He gazed at my stricken face. "The Chief Steward tells me you went to the port director's home. Have you still got your wallet?"
Miserably, I fumbled under my pillow. I nodded, yes.
"Well, all right, then," he said. "We've only lost four fire hose nozzles. We were lucky." He was about to leave when he turned back, frowning. "You didn't drink any French wine, did you? They make it by squashing the grapes with bare feet and they often have athlete's foot. I wouldn't want the owner coming down with athlete's foot of the stomach."
"The port director served wine but I didn't drink any," I said.
"The port director!" he said, startled. "Jesus, you didn't sleep with his wife and daughter, did you?"
I nodded miserably.
"Well, (bleep) my eyes!" said Captain Bitts. "Sports, rush up to my cabin and get my medical kit. Steward, have you bathed him?"
The steward looked pretty agitated. The Chief Steward frowned at him. The two of them grabbed me out of bed, thrust me under a shower and began to get to work with antiseptic soap.
"Burn the sheets and the clothes he was wearing," ordered Bitts. "We can't risk an infested ship. Nothing will kill French lice but fire. They carry typhus."
The medical kit arrived. The captain got out syringes and needles that looked like they had been designed as bilge pumps. He filled them. They held me down. He shot me in the butt with three kinds of antibiotics and a heavy preventive dose of neoarsphenamine. It hurt!
As I was queasy, he finished up with a suppository of Dramamine. "If you're not up and around in a few minutes," he said, "I can give you an injection of Marezine for that motion sickness."
Another injection? "I'll be up right away!" I said.
Dressed in some new clothes, I wanly made my way to the breakfast salon. To my surprise, Teenie and Madison were at the table gobbling down omelets.
I pretended to eat so the waiter wouldn't tell the captain I better have that injection. This (bleeped) crew knew everything that went on.
The omelet gobbling was getting me. I decided to distract them. "How did it go at the prison?" I said.
"Wonderful," said Madison. "They opened every door in the place for us. They almost gave us the prison. What did you tell that port director, Smith?"
"It's a state secret," I said.
"Well, it must have been something remarkable," he said. "We saw skeletons that have been there since
Napoleon's day. Of course, the place is full of tourists now that couldn't pay their hotel bills, but we found everything we went to find."
"So what did you locate?" I said, afraid that he'd start on another omelet.
"Nothing!" he said. "Absolutely nothing. We thought we had found an opening between two cells, but it was new works, being done by a couple from Des Moines who had had their passports stolen. So we have irrefutable negative evidence. There never was a Count of Monte Cristo!"
"That doesn't sound very successful," I said to cover up the fact I wasn't eating.
"Oh, but it IS, it IS!" said Madison. "Here is this internationally known outlaw, totally immortal, name on the tongue-tip of every school child and movie director, who never existed at all! Don't you see? It's the PR triumph of the ages! Total notoriety and not a single spark of fact to sully it anywhere. It means you can create even the flesh and blood of fame without the slightest vestige of reality. What a PR that Alexandre Dumas was! God, they don't make them like that anymore."
"Tell him about the other lead," said Teenie.
"Oh, yes," said Madison. "Every officer and guard we talked to about immortal Frenchmen would kiss their fingertips and say reverently, 'Napoleon!' They looked so ecstatic that, if you don't mind, Smith, we'll drop off at Corsica and visit his home. It's right on our way."
Anything to get away from the sight of all that food. And getting to another port and calm water was irresistible. I went quickly to the bridge.
Captain Bitts was sitting in his pilot chair looking at the sky and tumultuous sea. I said, "Could we stop off in Corsica?"