Cruise Control Read online

  “You can?”

  “Yes. The rings that my wife is offering for auction. They’re expensive. I can get you on board as security.”

  I thought about it. I wasn’t overjoyed by the idea. My fiancée, Danielle, had finished her stint at the FDLE Special Agent Academy and had gone out of state for a while. She was getting back within the hour, so I didn’t fancy running off on some ship of fools with my telephoto lens.

  “You said you have a fiancée,” said Connors. “You’re not married?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, why don’t you take her? It would be a double berth cabin anyway.”

  I glanced at Ron. He was grinning like a lunatic.

  Chapter Two

  “You boys better be back for the big game,” said Muriel from behind the bar at Longboard Kelly’s.

  “Why, you got something planned?” asked Ron, sipping on his beer.

  “Only the usual. We’ll wheel out a couple TVs into the courtyard, Mick’ll make some of his fish dip.”

  “Reason enough,” I said. “This thing is just for a long weekend. We’ll be back on Monday at some point.”

  “Back from where?” I heard from behind me.

  I spun on my stool under the palapa as Danielle came striding across the courtyard. Business was brisk. Every table was full of folks enjoying drinks under beer-branded umbrellas. That was the season in South Florida for you. Folks descended on Florida like frat boys on a keg and pretended like they were locals for a few months, prior to bugging out before it got too hot. Danielle glided around the tables to me.

  “Back from where?” she asked again, giving me a kiss. “Where are you off to?”

  “How do you feel about a cruise?” I asked.

  “A cruise? Like on a ship?”

  “The very same.”

  “Sounds a bit dull.”

  “But that was when we weren’t on it.”

  She smiled. “You do have quite the opinion of yourself today.”

  “It’s like our back patio. Drinks, lounge chairs and a water view.”

  “Where’s this coming from?”

  “A new client. Thinks his wife is cheating on him.”

  “Grim.”

  “True enough.”

  She slid onto a stool and Muriel dropped a vodka tonic in front of her.

  “You look like you need this,” Muriel said.

  Danielle gave a slow nod. “Thanks.” She took a long drink.

  “How was Arizona?” I asked.

  “Kind of like Florida. Lots of people escaping somewhere cold.”

  “How’s your dad?”

  “He was good. You know. Not happy to see me there at first. But then he was good.”

  “I’m sure he was happy to see you, even if he wasn’t happy to be seen.”

  “Something like that,” she said, sipping her drink. “So you’re off on a cruise to follow an adulterer?”

  “Adulteress, I think they call them.”

  “Only if they were born before Eleanor Roosevelt.”

  “You want to come? Might be fun.”

  “Sounds like a hoot.”

  “We haven’t had a vacation in a while.”

  “Jamaica,” she said. “And that went well.”

  “Ron and Cassandra are going.”

  “Really?”

  Ron smiled and stuck his beer glass to his mouth.

  “It’s a sort of football-themed thing,” I said. “Famous ex-players, team owners, various hangers-on down here for the Super Bowl.”

  “Sounds like a frat party for the jet set.”

  “Exactly. And on a client’s dime.”

  “Well, I don’t have my office assignment yet.”

  “Still?”

  “They delayed it because I asked for the time to go to Arizona. I should find out in the next few days.”

  “So an ocean voyage then?”

  “You’re not going to be lurking behind some woman the entire time, are you?”

  “Only you.”

  Muriel replaced my beer. “How can you refuse an offer like that?”

  “Sadly, I can’t,” Danielle said.

  Ron finished his beer and slipped off his stool. “I best be getting home to the Lady Cassandra. I’ll be seeing you two on board the mighty Canaveral Star.”

  We wished Ron a good evening and settled back into our drinks.

  “So where’s the ship going?” Danielle asked.

  “The Bahamas. The cruise line has a private island, apparently. Who knew?”

  Muriel wiped the bar in front of me. “Must be nice to be able to drop everything to go on a cruise.”

  “This is work.” I winked. “Besides, I didn’t have a lot else on. Just—”

  “Problem?” Danielle asked.

  I patted my pockets like an old man who had lost his glasses. “No problem. I was going to visit Lenny. I’d better let Lucas know I won’t be there this week.”

  I slipped off my stool and wandered to the rear of the courtyard, next to the shark-bitten surfboard, where the cell phone reception was best.

  “Lucas,” I said when he picked up.

  “Miami, how’s tricks, mate?”

  “Looking up. I got a case I need to work tomorrow, so I won’t be able to make it down to see Lenny.”

  “Yeah, no problems, mate. I can’t make it this week either. Gotta head offshore.”

  “Offshore?”

  “Yeah, one of our well-to-do clients took his fancy motor cruiser over to Bimini, but it broke down on him.”

  “And he’s stuck in Bimini?”

  “Nah, he chartered a chopper to fly home, but his boat’s still out there, so I gotta go out and fix her and bring her back.”

  “Well, I’ll wave as I go past. We’re going on a cruise.”

  “I thought you said you were workin’?”

  “Oh, I am. Guy thinks his wife’s having an affair and she’ll be on the cruise.”

  “Wretched business.”

  “That it is.”

  “You going to Freeport?”

  “Actually, I don’t know where we’re going. A private island, that’s all I know.”

  “Yeah, the cruise lines have bought up a few cays out between the Berrys and Abaco. Probably one of those.”

  “Sounds about right. It’s a Super Bowl thing.”

  “That circus? You should see down here. Banners and signs everywhere. You’d swear folks in Miami actually cared a damn about football.”

  “They care about the money.”

  “That they do. What boat are you on?”

  “Canaveral Star, I believe.”

  “Oh, yeah. She’s a new one. Supposed to be pretty nice. Least you won’t have far to go to get on board.”

  “Couple hours,” I said. “Less, if it were you driving.”

  “Nah, she’s not out of Canaveral. She’s out of the Port of Palm Beach.”

  “Palm Beach? I can practically see that place from my backyard and there’s never anything but freighters.”

  “They’re trying to make a boutique port for short cruises, weekend getaways, that sort of thing.”

  “Why call it Canaveral Star when it goes out of Palm Beach?”

  “Some marketing genius at work.”

  “False advertising if you ask me. Thanks for the heads-up. That would have been a very annoying drive home.”

  “Not a problem. Enjoy the cruise. The weather’s in your favor. Conditions look good. A light southerly for the next few days. A fella could kayak across the Gulf Stream if he were predisposed to such malarkey. Cruise ships don’t really care either way.”

  “Perhaps we can go see Lenny next week?”

  “Sounds good. I shouldn’t be more than a day or two, depending if I need parts. I’ll give you a ring. Sail safe.”

  “Right back at ya.”

  I ended the call and then sent a text to Ron to confirm that our ship was indeed leaving from Palm Beach, which he confirmed within seconds. It was
an odd embarkation point, given the Pro Bowl was in Orlando and Port Canaveral was only about forty-five minutes away from there. Perhaps the Palm Beach jet set didn’t like to schlep up I-95. Either way, it worked for me.

  I wandered back to the bar. Danielle had finished her drink and sat watching the breeze blow across the umbrellas in the courtyard. I stood by my stool, looking at her. She was miles away. I wondered if she was thinking about Arizona, or maybe her imminent posting to a location yet to be named. Maybe she was thinking about the cruise. Then she snapped back and gave me the half smile that sets me off every time.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” I asked.

  “Not sure they’re worth a penny.”

  “I’ll pay whatever the asking price is.”

  She slipped off her stool. “Finish your drink. We need to get home and pack.”

  “It’s a cruise. I’d say it’s come as you are.”

  She smiled again. “Sometimes you really have no clue.”

  “I know. That’s why I’ve got you.”

  Chapter Three

  We woke the next morning to the familiar rousing sound of hammers. The Intracoastal had swelled during a recent hurricane and surged up across our back lawn, running like the proverbial bulls through my rancher-style house. Most of the mini mansions on the water were back to normal within days, but many of the houses like mine that lay further into the island were still stuck in a state of disrepair. Perhaps not everyone knew a guy who knew guy, like I did.

  I wandered out of the bedroom in my running shorts and found a guy nailing trim onto my kitchen cabinets.

  “Morning, Paco,” I said, stepping around him to get at the blender.

  “Morning Mr. Miami. You like?” He paused to show off the crown molding that he had installed around the cabinet tops. The cabinets were white with a beadboard look, and the trim made the whole thing look like a million bucks. Which was about nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand more than it was before.

  “You do great work, Paco. A true craftsman.”

  He gave me an aw-shucks kind of shrug and returned to his work. It was fine work. The entire house looked like a magazine shoot. The orange Formica counters were gone, replaced by what I was informed was a tasteful quartz countertop, and the shag carpet in the lounge had been sent to the great seventies dumpster in the sky and replaced by a tile that looked like driftwood.

  Before this, I’d never had any kind of renovation done, and I had no plans to go through it again. The whole process had been like a time warp. After the hurricane, my friend Sal Mondavi had connected me with a contractor who owed him a favor. Danny Rucci and his guys stormed in and demolished the interior within two days. At that point I thought the entire rebuild would take a week. Then the rough work got done—reframing, fixing the foundation and rebuilding the subfloor, drywalling and electric and plumbing. Then time slowed as we waited for flooring and cabinetry. When the flooring and cabinetry arrived time slowed further as we waited for the guys to return from the other jobs they had moved on to—and there was no shortage of those. When the flooring finally went in, Danielle and I were able to move back inside from the tent that we had been sleeping in. I missed the lapping of the Intracoastal waters but not the bugs.

  Once the cabinets were finished and the final drywall was installed and all the holes were patched up and painted over, the whole thing looked close to done. Close, but no cigar. Then came the finish work. Finish work is the black hole of home renovation, a place where time seems to come to a complete standstill even though much work appears to be happening. It was that way for a reason. Even for skilled craftsmen, the finish work—the trim, the molding, the fixtures, the tiling and grouting—takes time. It’s the stuff you’ll see everyday, and it’s the stuff that sticks out if it isn’t done right. And after a hurricane, when work is plentiful and homeowners are practically throwing money at tradesmen, it is common for the finish work to be rushed and done poorly, so the men can move onto the next desperate chump.

  But this was not the case for tradesmen who worked for friends of Sal Mondavi. Like most of us, Sal was both an angel and devil, more of both than anyone I knew. He had helped so many at-risk kids get on the straight and narrow—Danny Rucci included—he was practically a one-man Boys and Girls Club. But he was also a made man, connected to all the wrong people in New York. So it was possible that the tradesmen knew of Sal’s generosity and his wrath, or maybe Danny Rucci knew it and would pass said wrath onto his guys if they did poor work for one of Sal’s friends. On the other hand, maybe they were just the kinds of guys who took pride in their work. Either way, they were taking their sweet time. I thought Paco had moved in. A dab of spackle here, a dob of stain there. It had looked done for weeks, but in Paco’s mind it was still the scribbled outline underneath the Mona Lisa. But it did look good.

  “How much longer, you think?” I asked him after the noise of the blender died down.

  Paco shrugged. “Coupla days.”

  I nodded and took a smoothie back into Danielle. She had a small bag open and was tossing up between swimsuits. She took a sip of the smoothie.

  “Paco here?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You ask him how long until he’s done?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A couple of days?”

  “Yeah.”

  Danielle nodded and pulled a black dress from the wardrobe. It was an all-purpose kind of thing, suitable to wear over a bathing suit to the pool or to cocktails with the captain in the evening. If they did cocktails. I may have just picked that up from The Love Boat.

  I threw some shorts and shirts in a bag and I was done. Danielle was making me wear long pants to the ship, so I was already good for those.

  “You need a jacket,” she said.

  “I don’t get cold.”

  “Not that kind of jacket. Don’t you have a suit jacket or a blazer?”

  “You know how many suits I own.”

  “I do. Two. One for weddings and funerals, and your tux. Pack your tux.”

  “This isn’t the Orient Express.”

  She put her hand on my cheek. “I just like seeing you in it.”

  It wasn’t a good reason but it was a reason I couldn’t rebuke, so I folded the suit bag containing everything I needed for it—right down to the socks and shoes—on top of my overnight bag.

  I put our luggage in the back of my Cadillac SUV. It looked more like a soccer mom’s car than any kind of Caddy, but that seemed to be the way of the world. We were all desperate to be unique in a way that was completely homogenous.

  When I got back inside Danielle had gone to stand on the back patio. The brick pavers were gone, replaced by sandstone that looked like it belonged at The Breakers and that I hadn’t quite grown to love. The water was calm and the same color as the sky. Danielle had wrapped her arms around herself as she stared at the water, or something much further beyond. I put my hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “You don’t have to come on this thing, you know.”

  “I know. But what else will I do? Sit here and listen to Paco hammering away? It’ll do me good to get away.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  Danielle shrugged. It wasn’t a sign of being sure of anything, but then I wasn’t expecting that.

  “Well, let’s go find out what’s so good about a floating bar,” I said, leading her back inside and out to the Caddy.

  I didn’t lock the door to the house. Paco was still working and would probably still be there when we got back.

  Chapter Four

  The Port of Palm Beach was a circus. Crammed into the space between Route 1 and the Intracoastal on the mainland side, It wasn’t a large facility, and though the cruise terminal looked nice, it felt like an afterthought. I knew the port well so I wasn’t surprised by the rows and rows of orange and blue shipping containers that dominated the landscape. What did surprise me was how many people w
ere waiting on the valet parking. I’m not really a valet kind of guy. I’m perfectly healthy, so I’m happy enough parking my own vehicle and walking to wherever I need to be. But there was no self-parking at the port, and the NFL types were like Palm Beach types in their aversion to parking their own rides, so the line of cars was like Black Friday at Walmart.

  Upon discovering the daily rate for parking, I wished we’d taken a cab, but it was all on the client’s dime so I wasn’t about to waste too much energy on it. I figured things would look up once we reached the cruise terminal. Instead we got into another line to deposit our limited luggage. Though I was perfectly happy to carry my own duffel, apparently that was not the done thing.

  We were supposed to have printed some kind of tags for our baggage so the crew knew where to deliver them. We hadn’t, since twenty-four hours previous we had never even heard of the Canaveral Star. With more huffing and puffing than I thought the job warranted, a young guy in a shirt and tie that made him look like an airline pilot, printed out a couple tags and looped them through the handles on our bags.

  After that, we joined another line that appeared to be heading in the general direction of the dock. There were a lot of well-dressed people. I recognized a couple of NFL team owners, a handful of former players, and some media personalities. They were all in suits or blazers. There were also a good number of folks in palm-tree-print shirts like me, and more than a few in tank tops and shorts. It was quite the eclectic crowd, and I was impressed by the egalitarian nature of the boarding process. I didn’t see a first-class line, an express line or any other kind of line for the well heeled and well traveled. Perhaps everyone here fit that qualification so the express line became moot. But I liked the idea that we were all in it together. It seemed a very ship-like way to start a voyage.

  What I did see was a lot of sky-blue-colored canvas travel bags. The kind of things they used to give out when I was a kid, when flying somewhere was a big, expensive deal, not Greyhound in the air. My father had one with the Pan Am logo on the side. He had carried his lunch to work in it for years. I wasn’t sure if he did it to stop the academics at Yale from looking down on him for being a lowly janitor, but I was pretty certain he had never flown Pan Am or anyone else. But here everyone seemed to have one. They were too big to carry easily and too small to fit more than a woman’s cardigan and a hardback novel, so I didn’t see the point. But they all had them and I didn’t.