Leaning over the rail, the dark-suited man called, “Come on up, you guys. Its okay.”
Sheldon knew that voice. But he couldn’t place it. And the hat was still pulled too low over the man’s face to recognize him.
“They’re going to hijack the ship.” Brenda whispered. “Do something!”
Sheldon didn’t answer. He was busy staring at the Tommygun.
Two more dark-suited men climbed up to the deck. Each of them carried huge, ugly-looking pistols. Colt 45s, Sheldon realized. Named after the beer commercial.
The first man stepped up to Sheldon and Brenda, shifting the Tommygun to the crook of his arm.
“You dirty rats,” he said. “You didn’t invite me to your party. So I’m crashing it.”
He was close enough to Sheldon to see his face now. And recognize it. They were being confronted by Jimmy Cagney.
Behind Cagney stood Allen Jenkins and Frank McHugh, both grinning rather foolishly.
Cagney hitched at his pants with his free hand. “Where’s Finger?” he demanded. “I wanna find that rat. He’s the guy that gave it to my brother and now I’m gonna give it to him.”
The voice finally clicked in Sheldon’s memory. It was Ron Gabriel doing his Cagney imitation.
“Ron?” Sheldon asked, a little timidly. “Is that you?”
Cagney’s face fell. “You recognized me. Shit. I thought I had you fooled, Sheldon.”
“You did. It’s a wonderful costume.”
Brenda said, “That’s really you, Ron?”
“Reah… who’re y… Brenda? Wow, you look terrific!”
“Thanks.”
“How did you recognize me?” Sheldon wanted to know.
Cagney-Gabriel shrugged with one shoulder. “Gary Cooper. You always use the Cooper costume. Every party.”
“Once or twice,” said Sheldon, defensively.
“Often enough.”
Sheldon started thinking. Not about his costume, but about Gabriel crashing the party. When he thought that Cagney and his henchmen were hijackers or thieves, he had been scared. But the thought of Gabriel coming face to face with B.F. terrified him. I’ve got to keep them separated, he realized.
“Let’s go up to the Sky Bar and have a drink,” Sheldon said, pointing forward and up.
“I wanna see Finger,” Gabriel replied, switching back to his Cagney voice. “I wanna show him my violin.” He hefted the Tommygun.
Brenda stepped closer to him and slipped an arm inside Gabriel’s arm. “Come on, tough guy,” she said, doing Bacall perfectly. “Buy a girl a drink.”
Gabriel couldn’t resist that. “Okay sweetheart. Umm… they got any grapefruit up in that bar?”
“Never mind,” Brenda-Bacall said. “You don’t need a grapefruit. All you’ve got to do is whistle.”
As the five of them headed down the swaying, rolling deck toward the bar perched atop the ship’s bridge, Sheldon thought, And all I’ve got to do is keep Brenda with him.
They took over a corner table in the Sky Bar, ordered drinks and watched the moonlight on the waves. Gabriel parked his Tommygun behind the sofa that they sat on. A blocky-looking computer over by the dancefioor was belting out the new atonal electronic music and flashing its lights in numbered sequence for the dancing couples slinking along: one, two, one-two-three; one, two, one-two three. Every once in a while the computer would throw in an extra beat, just to keep the humans off balance. Most of the dancing couples were heterosexual.
As the waiter brought their drinks, Brenda leaned close enough to Sheldon to whisper in his ear, “Thanks, hero.”
He looked askance at her. “For what?”
“For sticking me with…” She made a tiny nod in Gabriel’s direction. He was busy watching the dangers and arching his eyebrows at the prettiest of the girls.
“You volunteered,” Sheldon protested.
“Sure. When it looked like you were going to faint. You’re hiding behind a woman’s skirts!”
“You can handle him,” Sheldon assured her. “Don’t be afraid…”
Brenda was suddenly yanked up from the sofa.
“Come on, kid,” said Gabriel-Cagney. “Let’s show them how to do it.”
He pulled Brenda onto the dancefloor. Sheldon watched them gyrate as he sipped his drink and watched Gabriel’s henchmen surreptitiously. They were paying no attention to him; instead, they were ogling a table full of Rita Hayworths, Jill St. Johns and Tina Russells.
Carefully putting his drink down on the table. Sheldon slowly got to his feet. Alan Jenkins gave him a sour look.
“Men’s room,” Sheldon said. Jenkins shrugged as if to say, What do I care?
He edged past the dancefloor, trying not to trip over anybody in his clumsy platform boots. Thankfully, Gabriel’s back was to him. But that meant that Brenda was facing him and the look she shot at him was pure venom.
Sheldon mouthed at her, “Relax and enjoy it,” and scuttled out of the bar.
He raced down three flights of stairs, clutching madly at the railing to keep from falling. The ship tossed and swayed and the stairs seemed to be trying to deliberately move out from under Sheldon.
But finally he made it to the Main Lounge. B.F. was sitting at a table near the bandstand, surrounded by blondes of all description, from a Pickford to a pair of Monroes. Lassie, believe it or not, was lying on the carpeting at his side.
A George Jessel was on the bandstand singing the Marine Corps Hymn, while George Burns and Jack Benny argued quietly but with great animation, off at the far end of the lounge, over who would go on next.
Sheldon made his way around the outer perimeter of the once-plush Lounge, squirmed through a phalanx of blondes and finally managed to get close enough to Bernard Finger to lean over his shoulder and whisper:
“Trouble, B.F.”
Finger raised his dimpled chin in Sheldon’s direction. “So he sings off key. So did the original Jessel.”
“That’s not what I mean. Ron Gabriel’s crashed the party.”
“What?” Finger shouted laud enough to startle Jessel into almost a full bar on-key. “That little snot! Here? Uninvited?”
“What else?” Sheldon said.
“How’d he get here? Where is he? What’s he want? Is he hitting anybody?”
If Sheldon weren’t convinced that it was impossible, he’d have been tempted to speculate that B.F. was physically frightened of Ron Gabriel.
“He’s in the Sky Bar. Brenda’s got him in tow.…” And suddenly Sheldon realized that this was an opportunity straight out of the blue, a gift from Olympus. He had B.F.’s complete and undivided attention.
He took a quick breath, then suggested, “Maybe we’d better get you to a more protected location, B.F. You know how crazy Gabriel can be.”
Finger pushed two blondes aside and stood up. He seemed almost dazed with fear. “Yeah… right…”
“And there’s a lot about this situation that I have to tell you about,” Sheldon went on.
“Okay,” Finger said. “Down in my stateroom.”
Finger’s stateroom was a suite, of course. And it was actually up on deck from the Main Lounge, not down. It wasn’t until the steel doors of the luxurious suite were firmly locked behind them that Finger appeared to relax.
“That Gabriel,” he muttered. “He’s crazy. He hit Lucio Grinaldi once, just for adding two or three songs to one of his scripts.”
“That was Gabriel’s adaptation of In Cold Blood, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Finger plopped down into an overstuffed chair. “Imagine punching a producer just for turning a show into a musical.”
A butler appeared and took their order for drinks. Sheldon sat down. His chair accommodated itself to his body. The air was sweet and cool. The suite was dimly lit, quiet, tasteful, with the kind of silence and comfort that only a lot of money could buy.