The caw of ocean birds; the scent of saltwater; and the wan moon on the wan wash of sea against the rolling boat-how he loved the water and all its myths.
He wanted to call his children and tell them that he was idiotically happy because he was-yes, abruptly and unbelievably, he was indeed happy. The ocean was great therapy for him as it had been for no less than Eugene O'Neill and Stephen Crane and Jack London and Hart Crane-well, check Hart, the man having pitched himself miserably overboard at the end. Wonderful therapy. He wondered how much a ship-to-shore call would be, and what time it was in Boston and Los Angeles, respectively.
And it was exactly then that he ran into somebody who was backing out of a cabin.
He assumed she was going for little more than a brief stroll because she wore only a white terry-cloth robe and a towel wrapped around her head.
Beneath the line of her robe he could see that she had sensational legs and as she turned he saw that she had a face to match.
Encouraged by her mere presence-and the elegantly wrought lines of her legs-he started to introduce himself but then he saw that the woman held her hands away from her body, as if they did not belong to her. Or as if she did not want them.
Then he realized that there was a very good reason for this. Her hands and forearms were covered in what appeared to be blood.
"My Lord," he said.
"He's dead. I didn't kill him. Do you think they'll believe me?"
He was so intrigued with her face-very, very nice; an erotic naivete; or would it be a naive eroticism-that he said, "Of course they will."
"I don't even own a knife like that."
"Of course you don't."
"And I had no reason in the world to kill him."
"Of course you didn't."
"I just wanted to take a little shower so that our time together would be-well, perfect-and then I came out and found him there. Does that sound believable?"
He was doing his best to peer down the slight opening in her terry-cloth gown, wondrously wound up and ashamed of himself at the same time.
While he was looking at her, she was looking at him and then she said, "You're Tobin, the critic! You're one of them!"
"One of them?"
"One of the panel. 'Celebrity Circle.' "
"Ah. Yes."
"So's he. So was he, I mean."
Then, lust and alcohol receding, Tobin began to have some sense of what was going on here. "In your cabin," he said.
"Yes."
"There's a dead man."
"Yes."
"Stabbed, I believe you said. Or implied."
"Yes."
"And he's-or was, as you said-on the panel."
"Yes."
"My God."
"Exactly," she said, holding her bloody hands out to him as if she wanted him to take them. "And it's not as if he's just another passenger. He's a celebrity. Or was."
The way she said "celebrity"-so dreamily-told him far more than he should have known about her. This glimpse into her both excited and depressed him.
Then, inevitably, he asked, "Who is he?"
"I didn't tell you?"
"No."
"Ken."
"Ken Norris?"
"Yes. 'High Rise.'"
Terrible show, thought Tobin, realizing the curse of being a critic. The poor bastard had just been stabbed and here Tobin was reviewing his show.
"Do you think they'll believe me?" she said again.
"I think so."
"You sounded so much surer before."
"Why don't we go have a look and then I'll call for the captain?"
"God," she said, "Aberdeen will never believe this." He decided, for the moment, not to ask who Aberdeen might be.
5
Following the murder of his partner, Richard Dunphy-they'd done a TV movie review show together-Tobin had found himself essentially unemployed. The company that owned the show had been sold and the new owner didn't like TV movie review shows at all. "That's sissy stuff," he'd said on the day he'd announced "World Wrestling Wrap-up" as Tobin's replacement-and so Tobin was dispatched to that limbo of late payments, bounced checks, and toadying-to-lessers called "free-lance." There were pieces, and good pieces, if he did say so, for American Film and Cinema and Esquire; there were less good pieces, but far more lucrative, for Parade ("Sally Fields' Seven Rules for Being a Good Mother"), and then there was the celebrity circuit.
While Tobin and Dunphy had hardly been famous, at least not exactly, their movie show had played on more than three hundred stations around the country, making it successful, so successful that Tobin's agent was certain that "any day now, babe, we'll be connecting with some moneymen who'll want to not only give you your own show but actually spend some bucks. Truly." Tobin's agent was named Phil Annis, a name that led to all sorts of jokes, in his case deserved. "In the meantime, though," Phil had said, which was how he always preceded news he knew Tobin would hate. "In the meantime, though, I've made a deal with Cartwright Productions for you to appear on all their basic cable shows. Not much bread, but really good exposure." Cartwright, which Tobin had only dimly heard of, turned out to own five shows: "Celebrity Gardener" (Tobin pretended to be planting roses), "Celebrity Handyman" (Tobin pretended to be building a fancy bookcase, nearly taking off a finger with a SKIL saw), "Celebrity Fitness" (Tobin was seen walking past St. Patrick's Cathedral as the camera grabbed a tight shot of his $250 walking shoes), and "Celebrity Confessions" (a show for which Tobin contrived a tale of being kidnapped at age eight and then left to wander in dark and deep woods for two days before Mommy and Daddy in the family Buick found him alive).
All this nonsense went on for six months before Phil stumbled onto "Celebrity Circle," which was known in some uncharitable quarters as "Celebrity Circle Jerk" and which, if not exactly Hallmark Hall of Fame, was actually a successful show, one of the most successful of all syndicated game shows.
But "Circle" was having a problem-it seemed to have peaked. Ratings while still very high were not reflecting "all that demographic and psychographic shit they worry about so much" (in the words of Phil Annis) and as a result the show went in search of a gimmick, which turned out to be a "very special two weeks of 'Celebrity Circle,'" a cruise aboard the St. Michael, "the world's most glamorous ship filled with the world's most glamorous stars-your very favorites from your very favorite shows including a brand-new addition- everybody's very favorite movie critic!" (all this from the publicity handout) and then two paragraphs about Tobin and all the wonderful things he'd done with his life.
The pay wasn't a great deal over scale but for once
Phil was right about it being "important exposure" and for another thing the cruise was in fact a great one, loaded with women, food, sun, and a certain deference paid him because he was after all that most enviable of American entities, a celebrity.
All he had to do was show up to tape nine segments in the jerry-rigged studio on the main deck and the rest of the time he was free to do whatever he could get away with-if he could spare the time from viewing.
Presently, that seemed to consist of helping out a delicious-looking but definitely strange young woman who kept muttering about someone called Aberdeen.
He was very officious, actually. He came in and clipped on the lights and then made a very manly show of not being disturbed at all over the sight of the blood-soaked body.
He knelt down next to it-knowing she was watching him from behind-the way his hero Alan Ladd might have-and said, as if it needed to be said, "Stabbed."