PART TEN
A half a world away, a young woman thoughtfully tapped her gold pen on the desk and read for a second time the insurance report on the loss of the XYZ. “Doesn’t sound right,” muttered.
“What’s that, Gert?” said the man across the office. He was dressed to play tennis, his afternoon court already reserved, racquet ready in his hand. “You still looking at that cruise ship report? Forget it. None of the authorities are pressing for an investigation, and the beneficiaries of all those policies aren’t complaining. A search turned up nothing. The sailing plan took them passed a restricted zone, where even the merest sound of a motor would have left a sonar signature, and there was none.” He took a slow swing with his racquet at an imaginary ball.
“Something doesn’t seem right about it. The storm was pretty tame, barely a squall. The ship had been inspected a few months before. No reason for it to go down. No S.O.S. signal. The ship just vanished.”
“Look, Gert, we’re insurance fraud auditors, not investigators of the paranormal. The insurance policies were on the passengers.”
“I know, Harry—”
“So where’s the fraud? Are you suggesting all the beneficiaries of the passengers—the mothers, the boyfriends, the charities—got together in one big conspiracy to sink the ship? Doesn’t make sense.”
She handed him a list. “This is what does not make sense,” she said. She brushed her hair back, and it occurred to Harry that Gertrude Sloan was one of the few women he knew that could work all through the night and still look beautiful the next day. Even the little shadows under her eyes from that sleepiness night of work made her look all the more desirable. Then again, he did not know many women like his partner who cleared a million each year on commissions solving insurance fraud cases. She was relentless. And she was almost always right in her hunches. That’s why he bothered to look at the list she had thrust at him.
“All right, what do we have here. Passengers mostly women—”
“All women,” she said.
“Very well, all women. . . ages all about the same, low twenties. . . " He glanced at the copies of the passport photos attached to the list. “A lot of them attractive. . . how is it I never get to go on cruises like this? . . .”
“They are all women. . . all young . . . all good looking. . . and all unattached.”
Harry shrugged and gave the list back. “So it’s a Club Med thing and quite a tragedy. I remember the case now, it was in the news a few months ago, wasn’t it?”
“That’s the one.”
“Well. . .like a said, there’s no motive for fraud. Those policies were all arranged through the travel agency, premiums paid by the tour. Ship went down without a trace, happens now and then, the search turned up nothing, file closed, beneficiaries got the dough, case over.”
But Harry could tell she would not be deterred. She had that same look in her eye that she had when entering her black belt karate tournaments. Which near as Harry could tell, was the only thing she did outside of her obsession for work. Rumor had it she had a fabulous apartment with half her wealth invested there in art. He had never seen it, and we wondered if any man ever had.
She put the list into her portfolio and reached for her leather coat.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Marseilles, of course. That’s where this little pleasure cruise embarked. I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole case.”
Harry tried to half-heartedly to stop her, but the door was already swinging shut and he could hear pumps tapping their way purposefully toward the elevator.
A few days later, the fat proprietor of the Bon Viveur Travel agency looked up from his newspaper to see a tall, slim woman with dark shades and clothes that spoke of the best shops in Paris. Two words entered his mind immediately: “American” and “Rich”. He put in paper down next to his tiny cup of coffee.
“Hallo, Madame, how can I be of service?” he asked in his horse-drawn English.
She answered back in grad school French. “A cruise, monsieur. I wish to get away from it all for a few days.”
“Ah! We have several fine tours. In fact, a vacancy has opened up for our next boat of Marseilles.” He had her fill out a standard passenger information form, took one glance at it.
“One moment, mademoiselle,” he said. He waddled back into an inner office and rang the number Andre had given him. “Yes, this is the Bon Viveur Agency in Paris. We have a little fish on the way, comprezvous?” And he read the information from her form.
He came back to her all smiles. “Everything has been arranged, mademoiselle. Now to get to Marseilles, you take the train from the Gard Nord . . .”
Meanwhile, a passenger had just settled in one of the yachts recently staffed by Andre’s lovedoll pleasure crews. He was a Swiss banker, a young man with strong appetites and the money to indulge them. He had just finished putting away his things when there was a gentle knocking on his cabin door. He opened it to see an extraordinarily beautiful girl, dressed in nothing but a thong bottom bathing suit and a soft bimbo smile. Her skin was deeply tanned and had the slight dull sheen of the lovedoll bodysuit, which even then was reconfiguring her body into its voluptuous shape. Attached to the thong on a velco strip was the standard remote control behavior control device. The passenger recognized it at once, since he had read the “Pleasure Crews—User’s Manual” that came with the ticket to this secret and exclusive tour. The thought of all the different options in the manual made him hustle her through the cabin door. The girl’s hair cascaded over her shoulders in glossy blonde curls, over her hyper-augmented breasts. She entered the cabin with delicate, mincing steps on her high-heeled sandaled feet. Tied around the girl’s neck was a ribbon, and on the ribbon was attached an engraved card. The passenger lifted the card to read it.
“My name is Tami,” the card said. “Your cabin-service dinner will be served shortly. And I’m the dessert!”
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