Coolly she said, 'Nice boat, guy.' Then checking back at the controls, she glanced at the rev counter and saw that they were doing over twenty revs as it was. The movie actor's boat was virtually in flight.
Sitting next to her at the helm position, Jack Jellicoe nodded his nervous agreement. Smiling thinly as the boat surged forward, he said, 'Yes, she's a real thoroughbred. I should think this boat is capable of near competition speeds. Am I right?'
Stanford dropped heavily down in the second co-pilot seat and said, 'Knock it off and just give me the story to date.'
Kate started to tell him about the Britannia being used to smuggle cocaine and how she and her FBI colleagues had been working undercover.
'Cut to the chase, will you?' insisted the actor.
'This is it, guy,' Kate told him. 'The FBI has requisitioned your boat and we're now in hot pursuit of the bad guys.'
'No shit. The real cops n'robbers thing?'
'The real thing.'
'So where the hell are they?'
Jellicoe, scanning the horizon with his battered binoculars, said, 'There's no sign of them yet, but we're pretty sure they're on this general bearing.'
Stanford gave Kate an up and down look of appraisal. 'I'll say one thing for you, Mrs J. Edgar Hoover. You sure know how to handle a boat.'
'Thank you.'
'Mind if we have some sounds?'
'Your boat. Your rules,' said Kate.
Stanford flicked a switch on the control panel that turned on the CD player. He grinned and said, 'Rock music for a boat chase, don't you think?' The next second a pair of giant speakers behind the helm position kicked in with a Guns n'Roses track.
'They'll probably hear us before we can see them,' winced Jellicoe.
'Yeah. Sorry it's not Wagner. If you know what I mean Captain Willard.'
'Not really,' admitted Jellicoe. 'And the name's Jellicoe actually.'
'Film reference,' drawled Stanford, shaking his head. 'Scares the hell out of the gooks, n' shit like that.'
'Still not with you, I'm afraid.'
'Forget it, Captain Willard.' Stanford looked at Kate. 'You know, I was kind of blasted last night. I have a vague recollection of a nocturnal visit by someone carrying heat? Was that you guys, or was I outta my mind?'
'That was one of the bad guys,' said Kate. 'They visited all the boats and took away the radio handsets to prevent anyone from calling the Navy.'
'Which disposes of my next question,' said Stanford. He looked back at Jellicoe and asked, 'How's it comin' there, Willard? Any sign of Mister Christian and those other mutineers?'
'No.'
'Like the music?'
'Music?' Jellicoe snorted.
'Guns n' Roses. How do you like them?'
'Not much.'
'On the subject of guns,' said Stanford. 'Am I going to need to be packin' a piece, or what?'
'Do you mean to tell me you've got a gun?' asked Kate.
'Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,' said Stanford. 'The Hollywood community is full of nervous people and prey to others who make them that way. Being a movie star has some significant bio-hazards. Stalkers. Shit like that. My own life has been threatened on any number of occasions. So yes ma'am, I am licenced to carry firearms. Fact is, there's a gunsafe on this boat. If you're short of a weapon I can probably fix you both up. Highway Patrolman. Glock. Smith & Wesson Sigma. All chambered for cartridges with gravitas. You dig? Easy Andy, I'm not. But when
you're on my boat, mi arma de fuego, su arma de fuego.'
Kate nodded enthusiastically. She said, 'A gun would be nice.'
'How about you, Captain Willard?'
'No thanks.'
'Please yourself,' said Stanford getting up carefully from the co-pilot's seat. The speed of the boat made the deck difficult to stand on. But clearly Stanford was used to it.
Jellicoe said nothing as the actor went below to fetch the handguns. He was still sweeping the bright blue horizon for some sign of the Britannia. From time to time he would glance down at the open-scan radar screen. It was a similar system to the ARPA on board the Duke, except that the screen had two displays: the radar image of the general vicinity, and the adjacent chart display -- instant confirmation of their position and any hazards that might be in the area. Something on the small screen caught his experienced eye and he touched the instrument's zoom button to take a closer look.
'There,' he said excitedly. 'On the screen. Something to the north-west of us. Less than five miles away.'
Al came out of the head feeling like shit. He had a headache and a bad case of diarrhea and he felt as tired as if he'd missed a whole night's sleep. So tired that it took him a couple of minutes to remember that he really had lost a whole night's sleep. They'd been up all night taking down the score. Then there was the medication. And the alcohol. Tearing the two Scopoderm plasters off his arm he threw them irritably onto the stateroom floor and then sat down on the edge of the bed, paying no more attention to the two dead bodies next to him than he had to the guy in the bath while he'd been taking a crap. They didn't bother him. Dead was dead. He never connected bodies with people who had lived and breathed. But he did wish that he had paid more attention to what Dave had told him about mixing alcohol with the seasickness medication. Not that he had drunk all that much. No more than a few mouthfuls of vodka. A couple of beers. That was just refreshment. But it did seem to have taken its toll on his state of being.
Trying to get his shit together, Al took a deep breath through his nose. He'd killed lots of people before. People he knew well, too. Fact was, it was nearly always people he knew well. The nature of the business he was in demanded it. You came on to a guy you'd done business with, like he was your best friend, and then blew his fucking brains out. Only usually Al had a little more enthusiasm for the job, on account of how he normally felt more like he had some adrenalin coursing through his system. Adrenalin was good for wet work. It kept you sharp and on your toes. Right now, he felt as blunt as a door handle in a padded cell. Gray and sweaty, like it was him who was heading for a Viking funeral, instead of the younger guy up on deck.
Al looked around for inspiration and saw a jade block and a razor blade on the dead girl's bedside table. It had been quite a few years since he'd had a blow of snow. Enjoyable, but expensive, and Madonna was too money oriented to let him turn lots of cash into a handful of dust for snorting up his nose. Besides, Naked Tony wouldn't have liked it. He distrusted people who used dope regularly. But as a now and then thing it was OK. And right now it looked just what he needed to be on top of the hit parade. To give it his best shot. One hit to make another. That was politics.
He leaned across the girl's body, casually inspecting her nakedness, and stroking her titties as he reached for her bedside drawer. Leaving aside the hole in her head and the blood all over her face, she was a nice-looking girl. Still warm too. But for his lethal agenda he might have been tempted to fuck her before she cooled off for good.
The drawer was a regular dessert service tray: shotgun spoons, gold-capped safety razors, gold straws -- all the paraphernalia of the regular user, like it was premier cru Bordeaux. Even the glass storage bottle containing her supply of coke was wearing a little gold jacket.
'Damn right, babe,' Al told her as he tapped a generous measure onto her jade chopping block. 'It's a luxury, not a lifestyle.'
When Al had finished chopping the coke, he separated the powder into two neat mounds, took the gold straw and snorted one of the piles into his flaring nostrils. His head jerked up from the rush and a big grin spread on his face.
'Now that's what I call vitamin C,' he chuckled and swept the second mound of coke off the jade block with the razor, and into the dead girl's navel. Taking the gold straw, he pressed his face close to her belly and snorted out her navel, licking it clean for good measure. Already he felt invigorated. He said, 'This is good leaf.'