"Miss…?" Mark caught the attention of the young stewardess, held up his empty glass, and asked, "How about another one of these?"
"Sir, I'm sorry, I'm afraid we're only allowed to serve two drinks per passenger…"
"Oh, honey, please, I'm celebrating." Mark's face took on the look of half-innocence, half-suggestiveness, that he'd cultivated to handle just this kind of situation.
"Well," said the stewardess, hesitating, "I'm really not supposed to."
"I promise I won't tell a soul," Mark whispered conspiratorially, grinning his thanks up at her as though she had already capitulated.
"I'll see what I can do." The young girl smiled warmly, and turned to make her way along the aisle. Mark watched her slender hips as they brushed past the aisle seats, and thought lovingly of his own beautiful wife.
God, he'd missed her these past few days. It wasn't as though he had never been away before, he had, sometimes for a week or more. But Lynn on those occasions had always remained home, safe and secure. Now it was as though he was the one who'd stayed home, while she left to go live it up on a beautiful sea-cruise. What the hell, he thought to himself, it's good for her. She doesn't get out enough as it is. Mark hoped she hadn't done anything to upset Harry Johnson while she'd been on his boat, and if there was anything he was worried about now, it was that somehow, inexplicably, his deal with Harry would fall through in these last few days. But it wasn't a large worry. Mark knew that his wife was charming in social situations, and he'd never known a man to escape the magic of her "little girl" personality. He could already see her surprised face when he showed up in Nassau a day early.
"You're a doll," Mark took his new drink thankfully from the returning stewardess, and set it on the table in front of him. Handing the empty glass to her, he smiled and said, "Remind me to promote you to chief stewardess."
"I am chief stewardess," the lovely girl retorted, laughingly, "That's why you got the drink."
Mark again smiled his thanks as she left him, and then turned his thoughts once again to his wife. He hoped she'd been having fun, and that she'd overcome her innate shyness. That was her only weakness, and it wasn't even really a weakness, Mark thought. Sometimes she was just a little cold when men began to pay attention to her. Mark had explained to her that there was nothing harmful in returning some of that flirtation; after all, it was nothing but harmless fun. Nobody really ever meant anything by it, it was just a game people played with each other to amuse themselves. Lynn had never really been able to catch on, though, and Mark hoped that on the cruise with Johnson she'd been able to loosen up a bit.
He settled back again into his seat, and took a long sip of his drink. He was looking forward to the next few days, to seeing his wife, and even more to finalizing his deal with Harry. And as he closed his eyes in relaxation, it was not thoughts of Lynn that occupied his mind, but visions of an undefined and yet very real future, furnished with all the elegance and prestige his imagination could supply.
Mark smiled as his body and dreams continued separately towards Nassau, each speeding through the stratosphere at 475 miles per hour.
"Lynn, come on out here. I want to talk to you."
Harry Johnson waited, but heard no response from the locked cabin where Lynn had cloistered herself the last few hours of their voyage. They had arrived in Nassau, right on schedule, and were now moored securely to the main quay of the municipal wharf. Harry and Kate, and even Hans, had tried their luck in persuading Lynn to come out of her cabin, but none of them had had any luck. She had told them all, forcefully, to go away and leave her alone. Harry had sent Hans and his wife into town to take care of the hotel reservations and the refueling of the Vera, remaining behind himself to try to talk some sense into his apparently hysterical guest. Up until now, he had had no success.
"Lynn, dear, it's not going to do any good to sit in there and brood." Harry said gently, "Why don't you come on out and talk this thing over reasonably like a mature adult."
Again, no sound issued from the locked doors and Harry cast his mind about for some suitable lure. Then his face brightened cruelly, and he tried his one, infallible, trump card.
"Lynn, you're upsetting me terribly. Perhaps you'd just like to get on a plane and fly back to Florida. Would you like that?"
He smiled as he heard an affirmative moan from somewhere behind the door.
"Well, certainly, if that's what you want, go right ahead. No one here will stop you. But there is one thing I think you ought to know before you do that. Are you listening, dear? There is one unfortunate thing that would result from your leaving. I'm afraid I would be terribly offended. Yes, terribly offended."
His mouth twisted with sadistic pleasure as he imagined the reaction of what he was going to say would have on the trembling young woman inside. "What I am trying to say, Lynn, is that I am not a man who can separate my business life from my home life. And do you know what that means? That means that if I am offended at you dear, as I certainly would be if you left our little cruise prematurely, then I would feel compelled to be offended with your husband as well. Marriage is a unity, don't you agree? And I certainly couldn't be offended with you without including your husband, could I? Can you hear me, Lynn? Do you understand what I'm saying?"
For the first time, Lynn's voice was audible from behind the locked door, though her voice was blurred by tears and a frightening suspicion of his meaning.
"No, I don't know what you are talking about. Please… go away."
"Well then I'll tell you what I am talking about." Harry's voice was edged now with impatience, and irritation. "You get out here and quit pouting in there, or my little business deal with your husband is off. Do you understand that?"
"But why… what does that have to do…"
"It doesn't have a Goddamn thing to do with it. I'm funny that way. But I'm also serious. Either you start taking an active part in our little cruise, or when your husband gets here, he is going to find his miserable car lot is still his miserable car lot. And I don't think he'll be very pleased about that, do you? Especially when I tell him it's your fault I've decided to retract my offer."
"You wouldn't…"
"I would, baby, I would. Now I'll be waiting in the main cabin, and I'll be waiting for you. Don't make me wait too long."
Harry grinned as he heard a fresh burst of sobbing from the closed cabin. There was no doubt in his mind that he'd convinced her to stop playing hard to get, even though he had used a bluff. There was no question that he would buy Mark's lot and then sell it to the city, but the poor, hysterical woman who lay crying in her cabin didn't know that.
Another person who didn't know that was Mark Shaffer, who was standing in line at customs in Nassau eagerly anticipating the surprise on everyone's faces when he showed up unexpectedly a day early.
Coming through customs, Mark made his way to the cab stand in front of the airline terminal. He grabbed one of the attendants, and asked where a boat would dock if it were coming into Nassau from Florida. Mark had only been given the address of the hotel, but he wanted to see first whether or not the boat had even docked. The attendant replied that all foreign boats had to pass through customs first, and to do that, they all had to tie up at the municipal pier. Mark felt like walking, and it was a beautiful day, so he asked directions, and then set off towards the harbor.