Laszlo grinned, his white teeth a frightening contrast to his green mask.
“You can only dive that deep a certain number of times each day,” Laszlo explained to Jesse. “If we waste their dives, we use up their available bottom time.”
“And,” I added, “suppose you clear the wire only from the front half of the ship. You use the jacks to move the mast partly off the fore hatch. This will suggest to them that their target is in the forward hold, not in the after hold.”
Lazslo’s grin broadened. He looked like a bloodthirsty idol contemplating an upcoming sacrifice.
“They’ll spend all day getting into the forward hold and find nothing!” he said. “Brilliant!” He nodded at me and gave his highest accolade.
“Ernesto,” he said, “you’re an artist!”
*
I spent the next day on the launch at the dive site, but I didn’t so much as put a foot into the water. Instead I watched the horizon for signs of the Ayancas- and there was a boat that seemed to be lurking between us and Hong Kong- while the mermaids and the off-duty Apollos swam about the boat and practiced their moves. The mermaids were even more listless, if possible, than the day before, and Laszlo felt obliged to offer them several sharp reproofs.
When Laszlo and a colleague made their second dive to the wreck, the others happily called a lunch break. Someone turned a radio to a station filled with bouncy Cantonese pop music. The Apollos sat in the stern slathering on sun oil, performing dynamic-tension exercises, and quaffing drinks into which, to aid in building muscle, vast arrays of steaks and potatoes seemed to have been scientifically crammed.
Since no one else seemed inclined to pay attention to the ladies, I perched on the forward gunwales with the mermaids and helped them devour some excellent dim sum that we’d filched from the kitchens of the Grand Dynasty Restaurant that morning.
“So, how do you find the water ballet business?” I asked one of the mermaids, a nymph from Colorado named Leila.
She took her time about lighting up a cigarette. “After Felicia and I came in sixth in the Olympics, we turned pro,” she said. “I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. You try cramming your lower half into one of those rubber fish tails for an hour a day.”
“Yet here you are in the Pacific, on a beautiful sunny day, on a grand adventure and with the whole of Asia before you.”
She flicked cigarette ash in the direction of the Apollos. “That’s not what I’d call the whole of Asia.”
“You’re not fond of your co-workers?” I asked. For it was obvious that the mermaids kept very much to themselves, and I’d wondered why.
“Let’s just say that they and I have a different idea of what constitutes an object of desire.”
“Surely they can’t all be gay,” I said, misunderstanding.
“They aren’t,” Leila said. “But they are all narcissists. When I cuddle on a couch with a guy, I want him to be looking at me, not at his own reflection in a mirror.”
“I take your point. Perhaps you ought to confine yourself to homely men.”
She looked at me. “You’re homely,” she pointed out.
“As homely as they come,” I agreed, and shifted a bit closer to her on the gunwale.
These pleasantries continued until Laszlo finished his dive and demanded more rehearsals. Since he had Total Artistic Control, there was little I could say on the matter.
By the time the water ballet guys had finished all the dives safety procedures would allow, they’d prepared Goldfish Fairy to a fare-thee-well. The wire tangle had been shifted aft and, according to Laszlo, looked awful but would be relatively easy to clear when the time came. The mast had been partially shifted off the forward hatch, with the marks of the jacks plain to see, but the jacks themselves had been removed- if the Ayancas didn’t bring their own, they were out of luck.
In a final bit of mischief, we shifted the buoy half a kilometer, then raced back to the Tang Dynasty just in time for our first show. Leila and I made plans to meet after the second show. Among other things, I wanted to hear her memories of the Olympics- I’d actually been to an Olympics once, but I’d been too busy dodging homicidal Gamsakhurdians to pay much attention to the games.
We’d barely got into the general wretchedness of the judging at synchronized swimming events when my cell played a bit of Mozart, and I answered to hear the strained tones of the ship’s entertainment director.
“I thought you should know that there’s a problem,” he said, “a problem with your friend, the one in Emperor Class.”
“What sort of problem?” I asked as my heart foundered. The tone of his voice was answer enough to my question.
“I’m afraid he’s been killed.”
“Where?”
“In his room.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
I told Leila to go to Laszlo’s room, and after she yelped in protest I told her that she had to contact everyone in the troupe and insist that no one was to be alone for the rest of the trip. Apparently my words burned with conviction, because her eyes grew wide and she left the room fast.
I sprinted to Jesse’s room and called Jorge, who was our forensics guy, and Sancho, who was the strongest, just in case we needed to rearrange something.
The entertainment director stood in front of Jesse’s door, literally wringing his hands.
“The cabin steward brought him a bottle of cognac he’d ordered,” he said, “and found him, ah …” His voice trailed away, along with his sanguinary complexion.
“I’ll have to call the police soon,” he said faintly. “Not to mention the captain. It’s lucky I was on watch, and not someone else.”
I was so utterly glad that I’d bribed the man. There’s nothing you can trust like corruption and dishonesty, and I made a mental note to slip the entertainment director a few extra hundred at the end of the voyage.
“Where’s the steward?”
“I told him to stay in my office.”
Sancho and Jorge arrived- Jorge with a box of medical gloves that he shared with us- and our confidant opened the cabin door with his passkey.
“I won’t go in again, if you don’t mind,” he said, swallowing hard, and stepped well away.
I put on gloves and pushed the door open. We entered and closed the door behind us.
“Well,” Jorge said, “I can tell you right away that it’s not a subtle Oriental poison.”
Nor was it. Jesse lay on his back in the center of his suite, his throat laid open, his arms thrown out wide, and an expression of undiluted horror on his face. There was a huge splash of blood on the wall hangings and more under the body.
“Don’t step in it,” I said.
Jorge gingerly knelt by the body and examined the wound. “You’re not going to like this,” he said.
“I already don’t like it,” I said.
“You’re going to like it less when I tell you that his throat appears to have been torn open by the fangs of an enormous beast.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Maybe we should talk to the Hopping Vampires,” Sancho said.
“Nobody can talk to them,” I said. “They don’t speak anybody’s language.”
“So they claim,” Sancho said darkly.
“Never mind that now,” I decided. “Search the room.” I found Jesse’s wallet and card case, from which I learned that his name was actually Jiu Lu, and that he was the head of the microbiology department at Pacific Century Corporation.
Well. Who knew?
I also found his cell phone, with all the numbers he’d set on speed dial.